


Fall with Slow and Lingering Descent

by Moonlessmondays



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dystopian Future, Explicit for future chapters, F/M, Gen, all that dystopian goodness, anyway there is angst too, but creative liberties have been taken, heavily influenced by other fics and Philip K Dick's Human is, like everywhere, mentions of abuse and neglect and violence, saula fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24106909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlessmondays/pseuds/Moonlessmondays
Summary: “It was the year 2130, and the world was not what it used to be. Planet Earth was naught but a fragment of its previous glory, the population had dwindled down to a mere few hundred thousand, and the resources were scarce. Every move was calculated, the risks higher now than ever before, and every person acted as though they had an agenda.  It was reticent and cunning, and overall just beguiling.”Alternate Universe.
Relationships: Paula Abdul & Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul/Simon Cowell, Simon Cowell/Paula Abdul
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! If anyone reads this fic, and you're from the "dead" fandom, I used to be SaulaMachine. I retired maybe six years ago from the fandom and writing, but I had a sudden spark of creativity where these two were concerned, and I just bit into it and ran with it. So here I am, sort of resurrecting my supposed retired love for these two idiots. I never really thought I would ever write for them again, but here we are. And here it is.
> 
> I blame my friends for getting me into this writing business again - you know who you are. 
> 
> I want to preempt also, that this fic is heavily inspired by Human Is. A lot of the story was drawn out from that wonderful piece of fiction, so this could also be a fanfic to that, or however that works. Rest assured, I am not claiming it as my own idea nor am I gaining any money from this. No copyright infringement intended and all that pizzaz.
> 
> Pardon my mistakes, unbeta-ed forever.
> 
> Title came from Rainer Marie Rilke's Poem "Autumn"

**ONE**

“We can’t pillage from the same planet again, lest we deplete them of their resources, or we start an all-out war,” Paula Abdul, the Intelligence Office Director, argued as she sat with the highest-ranking officers from Level One around the table, and they tried to plan for the next month's reserves and resources.

It was the year 2130, and the world was not what it used to be. Planet Earth was naught but a fragment of its previous glory, the population had dwindled down to a mere few thousand, and the resources were scarce. Every move was calculated, the risks higher now than ever before, and every person acted as though they had an agenda. It was reticent and cunning, and overall just beguiling.

“If it is an all-out war they serve, then it is an all-out war they get,” Simon Fuller, one of the higher ranking generals, spoke with so much determination that, had it been another person, they would have been immediately intimidated. But it was Paula, and she was used to being talked down and being underestimated - one had to be if they were a woman who had found themselves in a position in a high rank among the all Level One officers. She never let any of it, or them, stop her, and she wasn’t going to start now.

There were murmurs among the people seated around her, and the room broke out in small, clustered discussions at the mention of war. She knew that only a select few balked at the thought of it, those who - like her - knew that there were other ways of attaining the resources they needed without any violence or any blood to be drawn. There had to be another way, and if she’d just be granted the time and the resources to research it further, she knew they would come up with something. 

“You could suggest the other quadrants,” Kara, her colleague and mentee, whispered beside her. They’d known each other for a little over ten years, and she had taken the younger woman under her wing and had considered her friend for almost as long. 

Paula nodded slowly, though she felt her ire increase. She already _did_ suggest that, but none of the people who called the shots listened. Earth, or what was left of it, had been under such strict Military control. Every decision, every move was mandated and controlled by the military officers, and though she was part of the Intelligence team, the highest-ranking female in it, in fact, her voice was often drowned out by the booming, louder voice of the men in the room. She was trusted enough with the logistics and the research, but she wasn’t the one who went out to gather resources, she wasn’t the one who put her life on the line. That, and she didn’t really call the shots.

These men’s actions were mostly well-intended, but then again, hell was paved with good intentions. She knew how important it was that they find resources to maintain lives, and she didn’t condone that or think it of little importance, but she also knew that there are other ways to find it. It couldn’t always be for the love of King and Country, and it shouldn’t be. It couldn’t get to the point where they’d lose their humanity in order to keep themselves alive.

She resented that her morality and her humanity never took precedence over her supposed loyalty to the State. In a way, preserving the little life that still was had to be enough magnanimity, but scavenging like vultures over other’s lives seemed...cruel.

“I would, if they’d just listen to me,” she whispered back to Kara. She raised her head slightly, and looked around the room. Everyone seemed to be buzzing, one way or another, about the impending threat of war breaking out. She cleared her throat. “There’s no need for that,” she said loudly. She shot a look at General Fuller, daring him to utter a word to the contrary. “We’ve made some headway on the research for other quadrants, other planets without inhabitants. We can get our resources there. We just need more time.”

But time was of the essence and, more or less, a commodity in itself, and she knew she was asking them for too much, asking them to risk it for research. She would argue how much it was worth it, and could present a detailed presentation of why it’s more cost-effective - both in material and human resources - but she knew they wouldn’t listen if they didn’t want to. 

“We do not have the luxury of time,” Ken Warwick, the State General - or the highest-ranking officer in this limited pool, and the man who called the shots - said, though he didn’t refute her, only pointed out the fact that she already had drilled inside her head. 

“And even if we did have time, we need the reserves, we can’t push too close,” Lieutenant General Nigel Lithgow said, though not unkindly. He was kinder to her, than most of the men in this room, and he was more open to listening to her alternative suggestions, though he had yet to put his feet down to implement any of it.

She sighed and tried to fight the frustration building in her chest. She knew they would say that. 

“We’ve already made this mission a few times before, and each one had not been with dire consequences,” Simon Cowell, a Major General who had led many great expeditions that brought them reserves and had brought _him_ more commendation and accolades than anyone in the room, entreated. Anyone who was anyone in this room listened to him, and he was all the more self-satisfied for it. 

Paula had worked with this man long enough to know him and his complacence, and what he was like in the boardroom. He was a soldier, forged in steel and programmed to survive - his family before him had all been, his own brothers all part of the Military in high ranks, too. She knew him long enough to read and know his character. She had also heard about him enough to know what he was like.

She disliked him all the more for it. Specifically, she disliked him immensely for what he stood for and how he worked to get it.

“We have to go ahead with this mission,” he had added, a hint of smugness coloring his voice. They all knew what he meant when he said that. “There is no other way. This planet may or may not be on the defensive when we return, but they still have more of the resources that we need than any other planet we could reach. We can prepare for a battle, come hell or high water.”

Paula struggled with the urge to gouge his eyes out. She fought to stay calm, drawing her hands into fists and keeping them clenched to reign in the anger. “They will be on the defensive,” she pointed out. She hesitated for a moment, but then forged ahead. “You can hardly blame them if they want to fight back. It’s a matter of survival.”

“Yes, it is,” General Fuller argued then, gritting his teeth. He looked at her with steely eyes and she would shrink in her seat, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be overcome in that way. “And our survival is more important than some...irrational, thoughtless beings.”

There really was no scientific backup of his claim, but it had seemed to be the very description they had anchored their beliefs on. If what they’re fighting for are their lives, against the lives of the less important, then the violence was worth it.

She had never thought them to be right, and she was hard-pressed not to tell them that.

“Then the mission continues,” Ken Warwick finally decreed, and Paula had to graciously admit her defeat.

**.:::.**

Simon Cowell had been in service long enough and had done enough missions to know that nothing ever comes easy, no resource ever obtained freely. It was the way of life they now knew, it was a fact that they’d had to accept.

It wasn’t easy, it never was and never had been, but it was a _fact_. The veracity of which was underscored every day by the memories jarred into his consciousness by the countless nightmares, and the countless men he’d lost during battles. There was no other way to live life than to fight for it. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but swallow he must, and he does.

The meeting they were holding now seemed like nothing more than a smokescreen, and attendance felt perfunctory. They were a militant state, the only state that was possible given the conditions they faced, the harsh reality of depleted resources, of scavenging and pillaging, and living life with no more purpose than simply surviving, and it was the only way. Something that not everyone in the room seemed to be in agreement of.

He’d heard of Paula Abdul, the Director of the Intelligence Agency, of course, it was very hard not to, her name preceded her reputation. She was the daughter of the previous State General - who had long since retired and now lived a more quiet, reserved life - and she had all the accolades to prove her competence. She was a doctor, or she was told, attaining the highest degrees and titles in the Academic and Scientific sector that he really didn’t give much shit about. She was known to be smart, though loopy, and she was soft around the edges, soft at the center too, always fighting for _humanity_ , as if it wasn’t what they were trying to save. He had to admit though, that she claimed some begrudging admiration from him for standing her ground and stating her beliefs firmly, each and every time an expedition had yet to be made. Not to sound patronizing about it all, of course, but he did admire a woman with a great stance. Besides, despite losing each and every time, she never was vengeful - as some of the men seated here would have been - and she did her part efficiently, consistently, and effectively each and every time.

For love of King and Country, he was not certain, but that passion had to be rooted in something - deeply so.

He afforded her the amount of respect he could, given her contribution in all of this - after all, she was the one overseeing the launches, the one who spearheaded the planning and the logistics, and the one who was there to make sure that the resources were properly allocated - but he didn’t quite believe all of her advocacy. It was quite difficult to see it when he had to face the reality of his men dying on the field each and every time they head out. She didn’t see that part, so she didn’t understand. 

The meeting adjourned soon after, and of course he was right. He always was. They were now heading out to the neighboring planet - Annex 14X - to gather what they needed. He knew it would not be easy, he expected a combat, but it was worth it. He knew it was. 

It had to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The leaves fall, fall as from far,  
> Like distant gardens withered in the heavens;  
> They fall with slow and lingering descent.
> 
> And in the nights the heavy Earth, too, falls  
> From out the stars into the Solitude.
> 
> Thus all doth fall. This hand of mine must fall  
> And lo! The other one -- it is the law.  
> But there is One who holds this falling  
> Infinitely softly in His hands.
> 
> Autumn, Rainer Marie Rilke
> 
> \----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Welcome home.


	2. TWO

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for any inconsistencies, as the circumstances of this fic are from a distant future, please suspend beliefs, and enjoy!

**TWO**

It felt completely unnecessary to say it out loud now, but she did tell them so. She had warned them, told them that the beings or creatures, if not completely human beings, in Annex 14X were not going to go down without a fight.

She had been roused from her slumber in the wee hours of the morning, an urgent call coming from Kara had alerted her to the emergency they were being faced. It seemed that while she had slept - fitfully at that - and had left the overseeing of the expedition to her trusted and equally competent colleagues, there had been an attack, and the men from the battalion they had sent had been forced to go on full combat. She had rolled out of bed and pulled on her jeans and shrugged on a shirt, throwing a jacket over, and had ran to the headquarters, not bothering to look presentable at all, because right at that moment, it hadn’t mattered.  


She’d breezed in the office and her eyes were immediately glued to the widescreen TV in the middle of the room. The scene before her felt like one from the movies - though she hadn’t seen one since she had been three or four years old, and her knowledge of it was simply a second hand one - and she couldn’t quite take her eyes off. 

"What’s the status?” she asked Randy Jackson, Head of Engineering, as she made her way to the desk.

Randy was flustered and seemed to be trying to control the panic, and although no one can blame him, it made the circumstance tenser. Randy has got to be one of the most, if not the most, laidback man that Paula has ever worked with and she has worked with him for more than twenty years, and has been friends with him for as long. If Randy was panicking, then it was simply more dire than she’d initially thought.

“Most of the ships are compromised,” he replied, his tone clipped as he typed away on the computer unit in front of him. “I have tried to work on them remotely, but so far, the damage is more far-spread than just the system. I can’t work on physical damages remotely!” He was losing his cool, and it was clear to everyone who was there.

“We can detonate most of the ships. The main ship is running well so far and doesn’t seem to be damaged, which is just as well because the reserves and the resources they already mined are stored there. We can let it go on autopilot, and that should help save...well...the resources, at best,” Ryan Seacrest, Randy’s Deputy, prattled on. He always did strike Paula as a chatter-head and had been charmed by his jovial and cheery personality most of the time, except when he ran his mouth too much. 

“But the crew?” she asked, though she knew the answer. Was it really uncouth to say ‘ _I told you so_?’

She felt her heart clench at even just the thought, but she knew that there was no other recourse. This was the moment where they had to choose between the lives of many over the lives of a fair few, and she knew what the obvious choice was.

It didn’t sit right with her, either way.

“This is the only way,” Kara said solemnly, just as the doors opened and Ken Warwick along with Simon Fuller and Nigel Lithgow came swanning into the room.

Ken’s face was somber and she could tell that it weighed heavily on him - they must already have been briefed about the choices to be made in this room - and Nigel looked stoic, his lips drawn into a thin line. Fuller looked apathetic to it all. These were the men that led their country, yet… Let’s just say, Paula didn’t think she would be looking up to any of them.

Paula felt her head swim as she locked eyes with Kara. Kara was loyal to the State, to a fault sometimes, and although she entertained Paula’s more progressive thoughts, Paula knew that when push came to shove, Kara was more for the State than “ _humanity_ ”.

Kara looked away, and down on her computer to type the security code that was only known by them - it was to be used only for emergencies like this, used only by the top-level officers, the officers with clearance that afforded them to make decisions like this. Next to Kara, Ryan looked at her for her next directive, he was poised to detonate the ships, but he didn’t dare do anything yet.

Paula didn’t want this, didn’t want to make the decision, but her hands were tied, and so she remained silent when Ken Warwick had ordered them to detonate.

**.::::.**

There was a slow, steady beating against his skull. 

_Thump, thump, thump._

It felt like a marching band had taken residence there somewhere and was using his brain as a drum. Consciousness felt a little far away, yet so within grasp. He felt as though he’d been run over by a truck.

His eyelids fluttered as he struggled to open his eyes, and when he did, he was immediately blinded by the bright light. He was deeply concerned, but only vaguely aware, of his whereabouts, and the fact that he didn’t know where that is. He felt the agitation creep up to him as he tried to wake himself up - if only his mind and body would cooperate.

“That’s it, come on now,” he heard someone speak, though the voice was distant and hazy. His mouth felt cottony and dry. “That’s it.”  
He felt consciousness pulling at him, pulling him ashore, and he rolled his head to the side, trying to get a grasp of the situation, or at least figure out where he was. The white walls were very telling, and the memories of the last expedition came flooding back to him.

He cried out in agony, his head pounding even harder as his mind started working overtime.

“Major General?” he heard the same voice call out, then he felt careful fingers running through his hair. “Simon?”

He woke with a start then, his consciousness slamming into him with full force that he gasped, struggling to sit.

“No, Simon, you need to lie down,” the person said, and he knew that voice, heard it a million times...it was Ericka, Randy’s wife, and she was a Level 1 Doctor. Simon felt his breath hitch.

He grunted as he lolled back down the bed, the effort he had to expend to sit up taking much more than he had at the moment. He turned to look at Ericka Riker-Jackson, her grey-green eyes were soft and concerned, but she had a smile, and she looked altogether relieved.

“What -,” he croaked, his throat too dry to allow him to do anything more. He watched as Ericka reached for the water on his bedside and kept the straw upright, to let him drink. He took a sip greedily, before he was reminded to take it slow, and he sighed, refreshed when he was able to quaff almost half.

“It’s okay, Simon,” Ericka soothed. She laid a hand on his shoulder, most likely to keep him down. She’d attended him in the hospital plenty of times in the years of his service, and he had been friends with her and her husband for a long time, so she knew his tendencies to drive himself to the ground. He’d been injured in battle plenty of times and had been brought here at the level 1 hospital only for him to bounce back quicker than was expected of him and go back to service.

Simon tried to catch his breath and put a pause to his thoughts. He was so exhausted, though he figured he had been out for a while as his muscles protested from the under-usage. He also felt pain in places that had been injured before in battle, and he knew he took a rather nasty and bitter end of battle.

“How long have I been out?” he asked Dr. Riker-Jackson.

“Almost a week,” she answered, looking at him sadly. “What’s your name?”

He looked at her, confused, but panic licked at him, feeling as though he was under interrogation for something he wasn’t even sure what for. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What’s your - you know who I am, Ericka.”

She shook her head. “Just answer me,” she instructed, though she almost sounded imploring. She asked again. “What’s your name?”

“Simon Phillip Cowell,” he muttered. He took a deep breath. “I’m a Level 1 Major General. My parents are Doctor Julie Cowell and Colonel Eric Cowell. My Brothers are Colonel Tony Cowell, and Brigadier General Nicholas Cowell.” He huffed as he trained his sharp brown eyes at Ericka. “You’re Dr. Ericka Riker-Jackson, married to Head Engineer Randy Jackson, you have two kids - Zoe and Jordan.”

Ericka’s face went through a prism of emotions, from relieved, to conflicted, to just stoic and reserved. Simon just felt confused.

“Ericka?” he murmured in askance, and he wanted to reach out to touch her arm and get her to speak to him, but formality and innate stoicism held him back.

“I’ll be right back, Simon,” she said, though she avoided his eyes. “I need to inform them that you’re awake.”

Who she meant by _them_ , he wasn’t entirely sure.

**.:::.**

Paula was busy allocating the resources they managed to gather from the last expedition when a knock came to the door, startling her back to the land far away from salinity, chemical formulas, and all the scientific stuff she had immersed herself in the last hour. She looked up from her computer unit and found a corporal standing at her door.

  
“Yes?” she asked, sighing, knowing that whatever it is, it couldn’t be good news.

The corporal’s face betrayed no emotion. “Good afternoon, Director, State General Warwick asked for you,” he said in an almost detached manner, and Paula wondered if they were training soldiers to be emotionless and stolid to make it easy to do the same thing they do to every planet they’ve ravaged so far. 

It was easier to not see the violence and the pain when there were wools over their eyes.

Paula sighed and nodded stiffly. She’s known that it wasn’t good news, and being summoned to Ken’s office in the middle of the day when there were no meetings and just right after a spectacular failure (in her point of view, although what resources they had gathered might speak to the contrary) was just full confirmation.

“I’ll be right there, Corporal?” She left the sentence open so he might tell her his name. “Did he tell you where I was supposed to see him? In his office or the boardroom?”

“Corporal Jones, Director. And General Warwick said to meet him in Conference Room 3.” he told her, and she nodded, before sending him away. 

She needed time to gather her thoughts before she met with him. Knowing him, he wouldn’t be the only one there. Nigel and Fuller were most likely to be there also, since the three of them always seemed to travel in packs. Although Warwick called the shots, the other two were never too far behind.  


She gathered all her wits about her and sighed again before she walked out of her office and walked to Conference Room 3. She was thoroughly unsurprised to find Warwick, Nigel, and Fuller waiting for her. They looked too serious for it to be anything but bad news, not that she expected anything else.

She looked at them in question, but otherwise didn’t speak, waiting them out instead. Whatever it was, they would soon reveal it to her.

And so they did.

“Major General Cowell is awake,” Nigel finally spoke.

Paula was surprised, but she didn’t show it, instead, she schooled her face into neutrality and nodded. She knew what she needed to do. It was expected of her as the Director of the Intelligence Agency. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was about to walk into though, all things considered.

From a distance, trouble was looming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that the fic has been all but introduced, it's time for longer chapters.


	3. THREE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paula finally meets Simon.

**THREE**

A man held in a gilded cage was nothing but a prisoner by another name, and only a prisoner just the same. It was not explicitly asseverated to him that he was a State Prisoner, and if asked it would probably be so easy, too easy, for them to deny it for he was detained inside his own home unit - but the half dozen Privates standing by his door told him a different story. There was also the matter of not being allowed any visitors apart from Doctor Riker-Jackson, and some high-ranking military officers who had been by to ask him some questions, though they seemed to be proceeding gingerly though none of them seemed to be too chuffed to provide him with answers.

He wasn’t even given the courtesy of being briefed or anything.

It was all very confounding to him, and the headaches had not been helping him clear up the muddle in his brain. He had been told that he was free to avail of the Level 1 Psychologists at their disposal, if only to help clear through his memories or work through the trauma, but he knew that it was just a farce. They wanted to pick out his brains, although for what he didn’t know.

From the clipped version that he managed to get out of Ericka, his return was a rather controversial one. The ships that they used to travel to Annex 14X were all detonated, save for the one he had been on - the mothership that held the reserves they were able to salvage. He was lucky, Ericka had said, but the circumstances had been tricky. 

The creatures of Annex 14X were known metamorphs, in that they were able to expel their life force (a ball-like mass of energy) and that life force would need a host. The human flesh was the most viable one, and they acted like a parasite, ingratiating their life force into the human flesh, until they are one, and it was hard to tell one from another. He didn’t know what it all meant, and the explanation was perplexing, at best, but it was one that he was offered.

He had, wisely, kept his gob shut about any of it - waiting instead for any formal inquest or interrogation. Until then, ignorance was bliss.

**.:::.**

It was part and parcel of her duty as Director to know the coming and goings of each and every expedition. The debriefing before the launch, the debriefing after the expedition - that fell on her department, among many other tasks that she had to fulfill as well as delegate as the Department’s director. She was expected to be the one to clean up after the mess of that last mission, after all, it was her job.

What she hadn’t anticipated was being summoned into the State General’s office and being asked to babysit Major General Cowell.

“Please tell me you’re kidding,” she said almost desperately, as she stood in front of State General Warwick. Her eyes blazed with as much defiance as she felt. She never pulled the rank card, willing as she was to go above and beyond what was expected of her, but she drew the line at babysitting suspected felons. 

When Major General Cowell had been miraculously found inside the ship that they had on auto-pilot for the journey home, he had been alone, and in pretty bad condition. Dr. Riker-Jackson's prognosis that it would take him a while before he would wake up, and even longer before he could make a full recovery. They hadn’t thought that anyone would make it, such was the sacrifice for a greater cause, and it had been nothing short of a miracle that Major General Cowell even made it. 

Everyone had been happy about it, celebrated in fact, that they managed to secure resources and save a life - even just one - from the battle. 

That was until they had reviewed the tapes, or what was salvageable, and had watched that Simon Cowell made it to the ship, another comrade in tow, but they had been attacked by the creatures of Annex 14X. Simon’s man had fallen, and Simon had managed to kill one of the attackers, but the tape had been compromised and went black before any of them could determine whether Simon managed to kill the other one. His prospects looked grim though, one against angry two didn’t bode well, and all the officers had been in doubt. Annex 14X beings were metamorphs after all. 

Who knew whether he was a metamorph now or still the same old Simon Cowell. It was hard to determine from just checking physically because the metamorphs act more than just parasites, and they end up intertwining with the life force of their host until they become one and the same. There were signs, but they were hard to find unless you know exactly what you were looking for.

“You’ve spent a long time studying metamorphs, Director Abdul,” Ken had told her knowingly, and Paula cursed Nigel internally. He had no sense of loyalty - he was supposed to keep  _ that _ secret. The Level 1 committee had never really approved of any extra-curricular research. She had wisely kept her mouth shut about it, but had told Nigel - and he was a backstabbing, disloyal man (maybe that was a tad overdramatic, but Paula’s workload was already full, she couldn’t add more to her plate - and now this). “I believe you would be able to tell if Simon Cowell is still Simon Cowell.”

“I barely know the man,” she expostulated, and it wasn’t even a lie. She worked with him, had been in the same boardroom as him plenty of times, and they have had clashes in ideologies, but they never really spoke to each other. She knew that their social circles were the same (he was friends with the Jacksons and Seacrest, as far as she knew), but it didn’t mean much because she didn’t often hang out with them outside of work, apart from the occasional dinner parties where she never really met Simon at, either. “Even if I know what signs to look for, I wouldn’t be able to tell you much. I don’t know him enough to tell the difference.”

That wasn’t a lie either.

“You’re the best person for the job,” Ken insisted, and it was true, she was, because she supposed there was a clinical, detached way to go about it, but still. “All you need to do is take note and report back to us.”

That simple, huh? She wondered why they wouldn’t do it themselves, instead, if it was that simple. After all, they’re all part of the same boys club. But she only thought of it and didn’t say it aloud, not wanting to scratch her way into Ken’s bad side, lest he deem it necessary to punish her further.

She didn’t argue anymore.

And so, here she was, a week after that conversation, making her way to Major General Cowell’s home unit, feeling like the weight of the world was just placed on her shoulder. She was supposed to be able to determine whether or not he was still the same man when he’d left, and she had been able to get as much information as she possibly could from people who worked with him and from his supposed friends. She also took as much as she could from public records and personnel files. 

Still, it didn’t feel enough, and she didn’t feel equipped.

Breathing in deeply, she squared her shoulders and tried to gather her courage about her like a cape. The way to go about it is to think of it as nothing more than a scientific project. She had a couple of conjectures about metamorphs and the way they worked, and this was a good way to prove it. She could look at it as research and then that was it.

The weight of the possible conclusion she might draw, though, sat heavily on her. If she proved that he was no longer the same person, that would put him in a precarious situation, and cataclysmic consequences might be met. She dared not think about how they would even resolve it at this point - this was a militia after all.

She needed not to think about it right this moment, though. She nodded at the young Private who stood at the door, guarding the unit. She was sure that Simon had not been told much, or anything at all about this new predicament, afraid they might tip him off, or that he might get on the defense. They said they needed to approach this carefully. It didn’t make sense to her, either, but far for her to be questioning it.

“I’m Director Paula Abdul,” she introduced, flashing her badge at him.

The Private next to her nodded once, before opening the door. She stepped in and took in the milieu. It was excessively plain and monotonous - not that the style of units ever changed nowadays, but there were ways to spruce off a home, make it cozy (she’d tried with her own unit, placing plants here and there, placing pictures, other nicknacks), but this was - well, this was plain and almost like it wasn’t lived in. It didn’t tell her much of who Simon Cowell is - nothing beyond practicality and well, the military man that he was.

She made her way to the common room, looking for the man in question. 

“Dr. Abdul?” she heard someone call out, and she turned, finding the very same man she had been looking for, looking at her questioningly.

She had never seen him outside of the offices, and had never seen him as dressed down as he was right now. He was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a black sweater, a pair of glasses perched on his nose. He was gazing at her with questioning eyes.

She swallowed and breathed deeply. “Hello, Major General,” she greeted, finding her voice had more strength than she initially anticipated. She didn’t know why she was nervous. But the fact that she was here under dubious and false pretenses worried her. “How are you feeling?”

He looked surprised for a moment, but if he read more into it, he didn’t let on. He gestured to the couch behind her, asking her to sit without words. She complied, and moved to sit down. It was awkward, at best, but there was not much to do. She watched as he stood a good distance away from her.

“I uh,” he stammered, probably at a loss. It wasn’t exactly surprising. “Would you like something to drink?”

She was a bit flummoxed, but she felt herself nod, and with a distant voice, she heard herself mutter something like ‘water’s fine’, and then he had disappeared (into the kitchen, she presumed) and she was left alone.

Left alone, to ruminate.

**.:::.**

Simon had been cooped up in his unit for days. He’d found ways to pass the time, but it grated on him that he was being held inside without so much as a word on why. He’d asked, demanded, and short of begged to meet with any of the officers to have all of this cleared up, but the entire committee had been conspicuously mum about everything. Instead, he was on a tenuous house arrest, without any formal charges against him. He was sorely tempted to hang the lot of them and tell them all to shove off. He was a level 1 Major General, he didn’t understand why he had to deal with any of this.

And then the answers came when he least expected it...in the form that he least expected it from.

He was confused at first, as he found her standing in the middle of her common room, looking like she was as confused as he felt. He was surprised, of course, because he had expected another one of Fuller or Warwick’s cronies to come and read him his sentence, but not her. He was always under the impression that as Director, Paula had better things to do.

She looked up at him in surprise, too, and it took a minute for him to register much of anything. He asked her if she wanted a drink, and she asked for water, but he knew he needed something stronger. So he walked to the kitchen, and got her a glass of water and a glass of scotch for him (something that was a rare commodity in this time and age, and he had gone through lengths to acquire it - but it had been worth it), before he walked over to where she was.

He handed her the water before taking the chair across her. He reached up to take off his glasses, placing it gingerly on the table before them, and then he took a generous gulp of his drink. She, too, drank, though a little bit more daintily than he, and then she placed her glass on the table.

The silence before them stretched for a few minutes, and Simon would readily say that this was one of the  _ more _ awkward moments of his life.

He sighed. “Might I ask,” he began, pausing only to level with her a look. “What are you doing here?” He left out the expletive, for politeness sake, but he was fresh out of patience, really.

She cleared her throat and looked down for a moment. When she looked at him again, he saw a steely resolve in her eyes that he (loathe as he was to admit it) found really attractive in her.

“How are you feeling, Major General?” she asked, her voice soft but firm. 

He shrugged. “I’ve had better days,” he admitted. He took another sip. He’d noted her look of surprise when she realized what was in his glass, but she didn’t really ask, and he wasn’t about to volunteer to anything either. “I’ll be fine. What I’m more concerned about is why I’m under house arrest without any formal complaints lodged against me.”

The thing was that he was a level one officer, and he was part of the committee, which afforded him a great deal of privileges than what anyone in levels 3, 4, or 5. Any sort of suspicion, which he knew flowed great and abundant where he was concerned, was not dealt swiftly with death as it would have for any other person. He was a man of considerable power and influence, his parents both members of the spearheads of this entire state, and he was an officer himself which meant he had the concession, at least, of a trial. A simple, stupid, fucking, formal complaint.

“You’re not under house arrest,” Paula replied to him diplomatically, but he was not born yesterday, and he was most definitely not stupid, he was not as easily persuaded.

“Ah, and so those half-dozen privates standing on my door, and the other half dozen scattered about the building are what? Decorative?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from his tone. He even rolled his eyes for good measure.

He saw her clench her hands in fists as if trying to control herself. He knew he was being purposefully obtuse, but well, they were being colossal dafts.

“They are here for your  _ protection _ ,” she spoke levelly, although she did emphasize her last word.

He scoffed.  _ As if. _ “And I’m free to leave anytime, right?” he asked again. He was goading her...almost. There wasn’t really anywhere to go to. There was the underground, where the black market was or the most illegitimate of business were to be found, or course. Most prohibited and highly regulated foods, drinks, and commodities were to be found there, too, but Simin didn't feel the desire to visit it. There was also the other side of the entire compound where the offices were, but he wasn't allowed there, as it were. “Go back to work?” he added.

“You’re recuperating,” was her stilted response.

“Look, Dr. Abdul, I don’t know why the hell you’re here, although I had hoped you have answers for me, but if you don’t, then I assume you can find your way to the door, and out?” he asked, trying to keep up appearances. He wasn’t known for his politeness, after all, though these days he was finding the facade more and more exhausting.

Paula didn’t need to know that.

She was looking at him quite oddly, and was silent for a moment. “I’m here to help,” she said. “I’m going to be honest with you, your survival was nothing short of miraculous.” He was told the same plenty of times over the course of the weeks. “I just need to make sure that the trauma doesn’t get to you.” He knew there was more to it than that, but she didn’t seem to want to yield just yet.

He felt even more confused. “You’re not a level one psychologist,” he said. He was aware that he could avail of them, he didn’t think they were to be foisted on to him.

“Except I am,” she said, and he should be surprised but he was not. He has always known that she was well decorated, and smart, this didn’t seem far-fetched. “I don’t practice, obviously...but I have the clearance and license.”

“Only the best and brightest then,” he murmured lowly, drolly, as he sat there looking at her. He didn’t mean it as an insult, either.

He’d never ask, but he thought he saw her smirk.

**.:::.**

Paula had never really talked to Simon before, never one on one and never more than a verbal sparring in the boardrooms, but he was... _ interesting _ . He had a dry sense of humor and was often sarcastic - something she had been warned about (cranky was another, but she had not yet seen that so far) - but he wasn’t rude like they’d said. In fact, funnily enough, he seemed to be taking so much pain to  _ appear _ rude, like he’s putting an effort to make sure his responses were borderline...scathy.

It would be unfair to presume that she had him pegged one way or the other, this was quite literally the first time she’s really met him, but he was not the man she had expected. Definitely very much unlike the person everyone has been suggesting he was. Even the Three Musketeers had very choice words and colorful descriptions of him, and she saw very little of that.

She supposed that she would find him less amiable, honestly, drawing from her own experiences with him, and what she had always posited as his intense dislike of her and her values and what she stood for. They were so very different from each other...yet, here they were - almost genial and without constraints.

She hated to break it, almost.

“What do you remember from your mission?” she asked softly, although she berated herself internally. She wasn’t supposed to feel  _ this _ affable towards him. He was still a person of interest. 

She was still just a glorified babysitter.

He blanched at the question she posed, and he looked away for a second. Sweat started to build on his forehead, though it was but a light sheen. She could interpret that in many ways - guilt, equivocation, or simply trauma. The fact was that he did go through the absolute wringer, not just this time but many times, it wasn’t uncommon for men like him who had gone through war to be triggered by questions. Simple questions sometimes hit hard on trauma.

He looked at her then, and she found strength behind his eyes, though he looked hazy, cloudy, as if the memories were an elusive thread he tried to catch. She shouldn’t sympathize, but she did.

He swallowed hard. “I remember..I remember having to carry one of my men…” he began. “I was half dragging him to the mothership. Everyone else was either too far or dead, and I couldn’t help. The alarm for self-detonation was going off on every ship and I knew that there was still a chance for survival. I grabbed him...tried to get him to the ship with me.”

He stopped there, and Paula looked at him, feeling so heavy. She knew that it was difficult, and he was likely to be suffering from survivor’s guilt, and that wasn’t uncommon either. She waited him out, letting him work through the tangles himself without her intervention...yet.

“I uh...he was...he was limping and we almost made it,” he continued, but paused again, his eyes falling shut. He looked pained and Paula wanted to tell him that it was okay, that’s all she needed, but it wasn’t true, and they both knew it

“What happened, Simon?” she asked him, her hands lifting in the air of their accord and itching to touch him but she only just stopped herself. She let her hands fall onto her lap.

“We were attacked,” he murmured.

This was not brand new information to Paula. She urged him to continue. “Attacked by whom? And where?” she asked him.

He clenched his fists and looked away again. “We were attacked right at the door of the ship before we could get in. They had killed him, and I could barely fight them.”

Her lips drew into a thin line. “You’re sure it was before you got into the ship?” she asked. The body of one of his men had come along with him on the ship. 

He nodded. “Yes, I’m sure,” he said. 

Paula nodded but didn’t say anything more. 

She knew that they were not attacked  _ outside _ of the ship, she’d seen the tapes. What she didn’t know was why he was lying.


	4. FOUR

**FOUR**

  
  


Paula posited three things upon leaving Simon’s unit. Either his friends didn’t know him at all and he had been lying all his life (and his friends and family didn’t know how fantastic he was at it) and only now had he been caught (because the video proofs did _not_ lie), or he was suffering from trauma (which was obvious) and he barely remembered the events leading up to his preternatural return. It can also be, as was her third conjecture, that he was a different man now, a metamorph. 

The former was likelier than the latter, but none of the three hypotheses can be entirely discounted.

There were very little known facts about metamorphs. They weren’t anything very common or usual. There were innumerable planets in many different galaxies and quadrants, not all of which had already been explored, and in those that were - metamorphs were not always present. 

They had known that there was a possibility of their presence in Annex 14X, but it was a mere theory.

From her experience with metamorphs, which admittedly was not much or at all, and her research, which was as extensive as it could possibly be, most of them didn’t act remotely human. They were life forces, energies, and were made by force to withstand and adapt to the changing purlieus. It was more of a survival thing, rather than emotional or intellectual. Although they ingratiate themselves to their hosts and become one with them, there were proofs of irrational behavior upon the host, which always ended rather egregiously. It felt like plucking things from the air, the way she was going about it because she knew very little of it. She could barely explain it to herself or make something proper of what she did know.

Paula sighed deeply, trying to calm her spinning head, as she made it to her own home unit. She stopped at her door, letting her face be recognized until the lock clicked and her door opened. She stepped in and sighed once more. 

Her hand reached for her back and she kneaded at her sore muscles, trying to get some relief. It was futile since her back always ached like a bitch anyway.

Reaching for the wall instead, she waved her hand against a panel, triggering the lights on. The room was instantly brighter, and she was once more reminded of the austere and almost cold and detached home unit she had visited earlier. 

Simon was a man of austerity, it seemed.

Walking further into her home, she smiled as she reveled in the coziness of it all. She had done as much decorating as was allowed, splashing warm tones where she could. Swashes of reds and mauves colored her home, and her dearest plants thrived under her care. She would have gotten herself a pet, but animals were scarce and highly regulated. Most of the animals they raised nowadays were strictly for consumption, and there weren’t many of them at all. There were strict regulations in place for meat consumption, and only a select few could get their hands on them, and it took moving heaven and earth to get those.

The silence echoed way too loudly. It’s been a while since she had the chance for retrospection, because she’d kept herself too busy to notice, but it was chasing her now, catching up to her.

It got lonely, she’d admit though not out loud, because she lived alone, but she scraped by. She had gotten used to it, anyway. She had been lonely long before she had been living alone, but that wasn’t something she needed to unpack _now._

Sighing, though it seemed more like huffing even to her, she swanned to her bedroom. She pushed the door open and kicked her shoes off before bending down to pick it up and chuck them in their rightful place. She moved towards her closet, which was one of her bigger indulgence in this home unit. It was unnecessary, of course, but she couldn’t help it. It was one of her intemperance...admittedly, and she had very little use for her overflowing amount of clothes and shoes because they had a dress code for work, but it was comforting for her to have them. It was a glimpse of a different life, one that didn’t revolve so much on surviving and living day by day. 

It was a dream, a pipe one, and she was aware of that so this was nothing much more than comfort.

She lifted her hand and caressed the soft satin of one of her dresses - one that she hadn’t worn in years. She didn’t know where she could so it sat inside her closet, buried in the sea of the more formal, staid outfits she wore for work. Moving along, she picked out something to lounge in for the night. It was going to be a laid back one, as was the usual, and she sighed again in as many minutes. She plucked an ebullient red shirt, trying to find levity in the sedate mood she had found herself in since she’d been at Simon’s place.

It was odd, really.

She’d wanted to go into the situation in a sort of clinical, detached fashion, because as she had to remind herself almost every minute this was nothing but research. She didn’t need to feel for him, didn’t even _want_ to, but it’s hard not to. He was clearly suffering - miserable, she’d even venture to say - and the whole keeping him in the dark about him being his whole predicament - the whole under surveillance and not under arrest but not quite under any form of legal liability as of yet.

Ken was firm, he wanted her to research, wanted to study Simon and if he _was_ (though it was clear to her that there is no need for clarity, they’re way beyond suspicion at this point, they’ve hanged him on the noose long before he had been presented to the jury), if he was a metamorph, they all but expected her to produce a whole thesis on him. They wanted her to take note of how he acted, the way that metamorphs worked, the way they behaved. It was even odder to her because she knew how convinced they were that metamorphs were nothing but savages, unable to feel, unable to think for themselves. 

What were they really expecting?

And what was she really going to get out of it? 

It was hard to say. 

She didn’t even know what was doing here.

**.:::.**

Simon felt the heaviness of the day start to wear on him. It had been a long one, longer because he had been detained in his unit, though anyone, _everyone_ , would deny it if he ever asked. He’s still confused about all of it, about what they were keeping from him, about why he was being confined in this stupid home unit, and why he wasn’t being allowed to go to work.

Now, he had to deal with Paula.

She was a conundrum, an enigma, so reserved yet so open and so earnest. He remembered their more lively (read: _heated_ ) encounters during meetings, remembered the way her eyes blazed with passions when she spoke and counterclaimed, remembered how she wanted to protect those that she felt needed protecting.

He understood that a little better now - battles did that to you, particularly nastier ones, and he understood that just because it wasn’t something he experienced, didn’t mean he couldn’t relate, couldn’t find a way to understand, sympathize even. 

He breathed deeply and exhaled loudly before groaning. He needed something to occupy himself, and because he wasn’t sure what that could be, he decided to just get a quick dinner instead and go to bed early.

Tomorrow would come sooner that way, then he could start the same day all over again.

**.:::.**

Paula walked into the office early in the morning the following day. Even if she was expected to be a glorified babysitter, for the time being, she still had some work in the office that she needed to deal with. So she had to adjust her schedule a bit and find her way to Simon’s home unit. However, instead of the trepidation and derision she had felt the day before, she actually felt a bit more interested in going today. Excited still seemed like too big a word to describe what she felt, but it was a day to educate herself.

Simon was a puzzle. What she knew of him - a man who induced terror to his subordinates, rude, judgmental, nasty, strict, cold, temperamental, mercurial, loyal, smart, clever, and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty - they all seemed congruent to how _she_ knew him. He never did give her the best impression.

But the Simon she met yesterday...he gave her a different vibe. He seemed to not at all the man she had pegged him as.

She made a quick detour to her office to delegate the day’s work, leaving everything to her capable secretary, Nancy, before making her way to Ken’s office. She found him there with Fuller and Nigel, to no surprise at all to her, three musketeers indeed.

She told them what she’d found out the day before, what Simon had told her and what she’d come to observe.

“He was sure?” Fuller asked her again, his eyes - far too suspicious - narrowing.

She nodded slowly. “Yes,” she answered. “It’s trauma. Often, trauma patients experience memory loss or lapses, and it could be one of those cases.” She truly believed that it was just trauma and exhaustion. He probably wasn’t sure where he was at that moment, delirium taking over him.

Ken’s face was bare of emotions, and Nigel looked contemplative, but Simon Fuller looked like he was growing more suspicious by the minute. Paula mentally shrugged. They could believe her or not, she was just making observations and giving them her professional opinion.

“They’re dangerous,” came Simon Fuller’s ominous warning. He was really the biggest advocate of extinguishing every life in the universe because he felt it benefited humanity. Survival of the fittest was his motto, never thinking of biodiversity and ecology and all that. 

Well, Paula had tried and failed, numerous times, to educate them on the matter.

“Noted,” she replied flippantly. “I’m about to head there now to observe some more. Will that be all?” She threw them a look that booked no room for more contretemps. “Thank you, I’ll be going now.”

Then she left without another look at them.

She made sure to pick up some breakfast on the way to Simon’s unit. It wasn’t expected for her, but if she was to intrude in his time to _observe_ (more like research him), she might as well be polite. Besides, she thought food might smooth things over with him and view her as a good company. Not that he had much choice, it was either her or the coterie of soldiers at his door.

At least she could offer him a better conversation.

Picking the most common breakfast she could get - bread, eggs, tea, and fruits - and then made her way to his home unit. She was let in without any fanfare, and she made her way to his kitchen. It was odd, letting herself in this way, encroaching to his personal space, and imposing herself, but she didn’t see the point in being shy about it. She was going to spend more time with him in the future anyway.

Her mind flitted away, moving towards territories she would rather not explore or travel to. It had been such a long time since she had prepared breakfast (though it was not lost on her that she did _not_ exactly prepare this), and even longer when she had to make it for two. Her life had been a constant rollercoaster, though she’d taken care to make it look like it’s been roses and daisies to the outside world. They needed not be privy to her struggles.

“Paula?” she heard someone say from behind her, and she startled, dropping the cup in her hands.

She cursed before turning around and finding herself face to face with a sleep-addled Simon Cowell standing in the middle of _his_ kitchen looking confused. He looked rumpled, so far away from the formidable Major General she battled within meetings almost weekly. He wasn’t even the same man as the casual and cozy one from yesterday.

She tried to smile cheerily for his benefit.

“Hi, good morning!” she greeted him as though nothing was completely out of place here. Fake it till you make it, she supposed. “I hope you like earl grey!”

That was _insipid_ , for her standards, but it’s awkward enough without her making a big deal out of it.

He nodded, though he still looked confused. “What...what are you doing here?” he asked, his brows furrowing.

She lifted a plate and moved towards the table, side-stepping so she didn’t injure herself on the broken cup on the floor. “Breakfast?” she said. It was true anyway. 

“You’re a Director, Dr. Abdul,” he said matter-of-factly. He moved to where she was standing and then kneeled to start picking up the fragments of the broken cup and dispose of it. “You’re not here to play room-service. What are you doing here?”

She sighed deeply and tried to shake out the guilt. There was nothing to be guilty about. “I’m just here to check on you,” she said, and that was not a lie. She was here to do that, too.

“We’re not friends,” he pointed out. “We barely know each other.”

She bristled. That was true, and it was odd for her to be showing affection or concern, but she _was_ concerned. She tried to smile at him without making it seem like a grimace. That was a challenge in itself. 

“When I was here yesterday, you seemed…” she trailed off, trying to find the right words. ‘ _Traumatized’_ was true, but it seemed to be too strong a word, and she didn’t want to make him feel triggered. “I know it was harrowing, whatever happened out there. I just want you to have someone to talk to.”

He looked at her with suspicion, and rightly so. “I can avail of Level 1 psychologists, should I ever feel the need to start getting emotional and all that, but till then…”

Paula leaned on the chair and regarded him thoughtfully. “I _am_ a level 1 Psychologist, but I get it. Talk, or don’t talk, I’m here to keep you company,” she told him without much palaver. It was a fact. 

To her disbelief, he smirked. “Very well, take a seat Doctor,” was all that he said.

**.:::.**

Simon had thought that Paula was a conundrum, and he stood by that, but she was also an explosive surprise. He’d woken up that morning and found her standing in his kitchen preparing breakfast, and instead of being abashed, she stood there and smiled at him, greeting him with cheer.

She was _different._

He wasn’t stupid, he knew she had an agenda, but a company with an agenda was better than no company at all, and so he would play the perfect host, go along whatever this is, and he would let them think they had everything pegged. Meanwhile, he wouldn’t get bored.

“This is very good,” he commented as he chewed on a forkful of omelet. It was just eggs, there were very few ways to fuck up an egg, but it’s been a while since he’d had good breakfast or at all, and he wasn’t above himself to admit that. “Thank you.”

She looked at him as she sipped her cup of tea. She put the cup down the table, smiling. “I will pass the compliments to the chef,” she told him. “Did you have a good sleep?”

It was an odd choice of topic for a conversation, and although he tolerated the fact that she was here under very suspicious pretenses, but he drew the line at stupid shop talk.

He rolled her eyes, though it was more good-natured, and shook his head. “If you’re going to be spending time with me for the foreseeable future, the least you can do is not foist small talk on me.”

He watched a plethora of expressions change her features. And then she seemed to settle on pleasantly _intrigued_ , and then nodded.

“You’re right,” she conceded. She offered him a hand to shake, which he did. “I’m Director Paula Abdul of the Intelligence Agency, but please, call me Paula.” The smile she offered him was staggering in its brightness.

He granted her a small one in return. “Major General Simon Cowell,” he told her. He watched her closely. “But call me Simon.”

“So Simon, how do you want to spend the day?” she asked earnestly.

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “I would have gone to my office,” he said, trying very hard not to sulk. “But I’m not allowed to go out.”

“You’re not -,” she tried to contend once more, but he raised a hand up. He didn’t want to rehash that argument.

“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. It did, but not now. “But that’s it. I just work. What else is there?”

His life really had revolved around his work, around trying to keep on surviving, trying to keep this world thriving, and that had been a full-time job, one that overtook every aspect of his life, and left not much room for something else. 

She nodded, and he knew she understood. That must be her life too - though he did often wonder if she was married, though he never pursued that thought any further. It was not his business.

She grinned. “No underground trips then?” she whispered, conspiratorially, as if it was such a big dirty secret. It probably should be. They were people of considerable power, of name, of position, and trips to the underground was giving up some part of their dignity, or something like that.

He laughed though, because thinking he never went was ridiculous. Thinking that _she_ didn’t go either was just as equally ridiculous.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, although he was certain she didn’t buy it for a second. “I bet you’ve been.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Of course, I’m the Director of the Intelligence Agency. I have to know what is going on in this entire planet.” But the waggle of her eyebrows told him an entirely different story.

He realized that he never really had this. Not this type of ease and comfort with anyone before, and it was such a good feeling to have. He had always pushed everyone away, afraid to get too close, had acted so cold and calculated, callous even at times with everyone else’s feelings. He put the State over everything, pouring his everything to ensure that the balance was maintained and the needs were met. He’d been rude and decorous. He kept his circle small and intimate, but still, they only scratched the surface. He was a man who valued his privacy.. 

But this was something else.

“I’m sure it was, Dr. Abdul,” he teased. “I’m sure it was.”

**.:::.**

Paula found that although she didn’t know what she was doing there exactly, Simon’s company was not so bad. He was still a bit cautious, reserved, and she watched signs of abnormal behavior, but she found that regardless of it all, she really enjoyed his company.

Of course, there was still the matter of him lying to her...but she could be right about him, he could just be under a lot of stress and trauma.

She needed more time to observe him, and that was what she was about to do.

She’d bid him goodbye that night, feeling light, and telling him she’d see him again the next day, although she did have to do some work first. It was difficult to juggle everything, but at least she had a trusty staff to whom she could delegate tasks too.

She wasn’t too pleased about all of this, but the one good thing about this whole Simon thing was that she wasn’t always coming home late and exhausted. She had time to dwindle down and relax at the end of the day, and not just come home to drag herself to bed just to promptly fall asleep and do everything all over again the next day.

When she did make it home, she’d found herself lounging on her couch and going through the reports of the day that she’d picked up on her way home. So much for relaxation, but at least she wasn’t spending it in the office and she can be rid of her starchy outfit and be in lounge pants and drink wine (another regulated drink that she’d had to pass a few red tapes to get). 

She found herself dozing in and out of consciousness (salinity was never her favorite thing), and her mind drifted to Simon. She thought she had him pegged, knew him, though now she figured it was unfair to think. She didn’t discount the accounts of his friends and family, she knew they were true, but it was not impossible for people to change. 

Overnight change, she found a bit dubious, but she had to factor in trauma.

Either way, she had the time to get to know him. 

And get to know him, she did. 

The following day, she’d found herself in his home unit again, a little after lunch. He had been busy reading previous reports, although she didn’t know what for. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, a bit skeptical, although he _was_ a Major General. But then again, these were old reports, she didn’t know what he wanted them for.

“I’m looking through reports,” he said pointedly, raising his pad where he had been reading for a while. He had his badge taken from him, something he had not pointed out yesterday, but she knew it was coming. “Old ones, because I’ve been stripped off my badge and can’t access new ones.” 

There it was. Her lips drew into a thin line.

He looked at her mordaciously, though she was sure that the acid wasn’t directed to her but the current situation.

Doubts filled her. “Whatever for?” she asked.

His sigh was audible as he threw his pad beside with little care. He raised his arm and placed it over his eyes, leaning back as he breathed. 

“I’m bored, Paula,” he said plainly. “I’m not allowed to do my job, not allowed to live outside of this miserable hovel. I need to do something.”

“By reading _old_ reports,” she said dryly.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Weep and mope all day? At least making contingency battle plans occupies my time better.”

She wanted to ask him what it was for, but frustrations ran high, higher tensions meant also that he could revert to his shell and isolate himself. That was the last thing she needed.

“Alright,” she muttered. “Well, do you want to do something else now?”

His nod was grave, and she knew he wanted something else, but they both knew that they couldn’t possibly do that, so they’d both settle with what could be had, and for now that should have to be enough.


	5. FIVE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning : mentions of physical abuse and violence, neglect, and implications of miscarriage.

**FIVE**

The days stretched to weeks, and Paula felt like she knew him very well by now, or at least better than she had before. After that first few awkward days, they’d found a cadence between them that worked well. She told him about her life, about how life was like when her father had been the State General, her childhood, her life in the academy. Simon was three years older than her, so they were never in school at the same time. He told her about his family, about losing his father when he was young, living with his brothers, and his mother who was a doctor.

They knew about each other’s birthdays, and why they pursued the careers they had now. 

Paula popped in his home unit at all hours of the day. And in fact, she had found herself being in Simon's unit more than she was at the office but no one would question that. They all knew what she had been up to, she reported to them about her observations, and made copious amounts of notes for her little project. They had been in the know. Unlike her, who had been kept in the dark about something, important things that she _should_ know as the director. Instead she found out about it through Ryan Seacrest.

She’d expected a big play of power, dirty politics even, but this was her job, she was _supposed_ to know.

"You should have told me," she said through gritted teeth and barely restrained ire. She stared at Kara who stood in front of her desk, shuffling her feet and looking at her with a touch of fear in her eyes. Paula rarely got angry but when she did, it was never pretty. "I hesitate to remind you that _you_ report to _me."_

"I had directives from the State General," she defended, and Paula understood but it was not a good enough justification.

Paula clenched her fist. "I don't care if the directive came from God himself. You report to _me_." She hated repeating herself.

Kara sighed and moved forward, pausing only because Paula stared her down. She threw her hands up in surrender.

"I was asked by the General to exhume and examine the body."

Paula raised an eyebrow. "Ken asked you?" she asked, doubtful as to whether or not Ken himself would ask that of Kara.

"No, Lieutenant General Fuller did, but he said it was under General Warwick's orders," she replied although her voice raised defensively. "I did what I was asked to do."

"Except report to me, your Director," Paula pointed out, feeling more than annoyed. She felt betrayed. "Besides I was under the impression that Major General Cowell was alone aboard that ship."

She was the god damn director, she was supposed to know the comings and goings, yet this was hidden from her. What else were they hiding from her?

"That's what I thought, too, until I was asked to exhume the body." She fidgeted and then looked away. "They want...data."

Oh, Paula knew exactly what they wanted. They wanted to exhume the body to collect data from his brain. It was all related to Simon. They probably wanted to check if his man had been compromised by metamorphs to prove to themselves that he, too, had been compromised. They would put him to trial and hang him then. It was all so inhumane and Paula felt sick to her stomach. 

This was a dead body they were going to defile, in order to make themselves feel better about exiling a colleague who had been loyal in his service to the country.

It was all so screwed up.

"You cannot begrudge them. This was your invention," Kara murmured. 

Paula looked at her colleague in a new light. She didn't need to be reminded. She knew that and it was a mistake then, and was still a mistake now. She had once wanted to reach the dead so badly, but not anymore. Not at the cost of her morals.

"I am aware," she spat. "I didn't envision it being used this way."

Kara didn't comment on that, which was to her best interest, really but she did say one thing: "Metamorphs are dangerous, Paula. You need to be on guard."

Paula shook her head. Kara's words lost their stock when she decided to go rogue and made Paula lose her trust. "I want you off this case."

Paula was met with silence, and she felt like she should be surprised, but she really was not.

Time to pull the rank card, then. “Stand down, Deputy. That’s an order,” she barked, keeping her eyes trained at the woman before her who shrunk visibly for a second, but Kara squared her shoulders and looked back at her.

Kara’s face was a picture of careful indifference. "Yes, Madam Director."

**.:::.**

Simon had come to expect Paula at all times of the day now. It had been weeks since she had started coming by, and although it agitated him to no end that he was still being detained, he was at least grateful for the company. That and that he wasn't being taken into questioning and then to court to be killed. 

It was obvious that they were holding him in and Paula was here to observe him or something but even if that was suspicious, he found that he trusted Paula. Paula was loyal to the state, but she was human - which was more than he could say about everyone else.

Simon was used to being only able to trust himself. His father had died when he was in his teens, dead at the battle, and he and his brothers were raised by his mother alone. She juggled work and raising three teen boys. She was a Doctor, and she worked long hours, which often meant that he and his siblings had to learn to fend for themselves. He had to learn how to do things by himself. And although he loved his brothers and he knew that he could count on them, he also knew that the person who looked after his best interest the most was himself. 

He didn't put all of his eggs in one basket, though, and so he didn't trust Paula completely, but he trusted her _enough._

He wanted to make sure that she knew she could trust him too. Even just a little.

He didn't know why he cared, but he did, and he wasn't going to question it, he just rolled with it. So when she had shown up at his home unit in the middle of the day, fuming, looking so thunderous that he was half afraid to even approach her, he still tried to do so, because he wanted her to trust him.

"What is it darling?" he asked her as he handed her a glass of wine. She was sitting on his couch, looking grim that he decided something stiffer than water was in order. It _was_ the middle of the day, but so what. In her state, Paula wouldn't return to her office even if she could. 

She looked at him briefly with an odd look in her eyes, although he couldn't really decipher if it was from the endearment (totally a slip up) or it was from the wine, although she must know by now that he _did_ know where to get the contraband, and that he would never tell her how he did because of plausible deniability and all that.

She sighed as she accepted the glass and shifted so she could tuck her legs under her. He moved to sit next to her, his arm naturally extending against the back of the couch.

"Just work stuff," she said vaguely and he tried not to question it. "Insubordination."

She looked much like her usual regal self - her armor of formal clothes on and her hair in its usual clean and pristine updo - but her professional demeanor was all but shed and her eyes had weariness in them.

She took a large gulp of the wine and he felt for her. In this world where the system was rigid and the government favored those on the top, politics got extra dirty. It was all swept nicely under the rug and kept very hush-hush, but it was dirty all the same.

He placed a hand on her arm and patted her soothingly. If she was surprised at the contact, she didn't show. And if she didn't argue, then he wasn't going to take his hand back either. It was all very tenuous, the situation they have found themselves in, and everything felt like unchartered territory, but as long as the lines weren't crossed, Simon felt that things could continue to be as convivial as they were already. 

If only he knew exactly what and where said lines were.

"I just...sometimes hate this government, or regime or whatever it is. It's almost draconian, always so stern and unyielding."

There were laws in place that made life difficult, true. They were there to make transitions easy, to make people malleable, and to ensure survival, and they were all important, maybe once upon a time they were all justified, but he knew that some of those rules need to bend, change. Life in Level 1 was vastly different from life in Level 3, that was for sure.

"We keep fighting so that humanity would survive but we forget what makes us human in the first place," she added, almost wearily. She guzzled down the rest of her wine, and then raised her glass, indicating for Simon to pour more. He obliged. "We do so much more harm than good, sometimes, like invading other planets, and separating everyone in levels, and separating the levels in different quarters and compounds, and never asking the people what they truly want, and that stupid Compatibility Matching, how fucking shitty. And positively anachronistic."

It was the first time Simon heard Paula curse, and he fought the urge to smirk. Instead, he turned somber.

He had wondered before, and wondered even more after Paula had started keeping him company. "Were you ever paired off?" he asked her. He kept his voice soft and a touch sepulchral. After all, being paired off wasn't always a joyful affair.

She looked away then, a far-away, distant look settling in her eyes. She looked almost lugubrious that Simon regretted asking. Then she shrugged and turned to face him.

"Yes," she admitted plainly. "He died in battle."

He nodded absently. There was plenty of that story to go around.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as he took her hand in his and held it.

She smiled wryly. "Don't be," she said plainly. "I'm not."

**.:::.**

If anyone asked her why she felt comfortable with Simon enough to share some part of herself and her past to him, she wouldn't have known the answer. In fact, she probably would say that she wasn't all that comfortable with him.

But then, that wouldn't be true now would it?

She felt a connection with him, like a meeting of kindred spirits, and though she would never admit it out loud, she felt like she could trust him. 

So when he had asked about marriage and the state's proclivity to interfere with its population's personal affairs, she had only hesitated for a second whether she should tell him. This wasn't something she never talked about after all. _Never_. But she was tired of keeping it in. Tired of being the only one who bore the heavy brunt of her past. She didn't expect him to lift her up, but maybe if she could put it out there, say the words out loud, she could unbind herself just a little bit from the shackles that kept her tethered to her past.

"You don't have to tell me, Paula," he said comfortingly, and she wouldn't tell him in many words but she wanted to. "And I am not a psychologist, I have neither clearance nor license, but as your friend, I am here for you."

That was oddly sweet. She offered him a smile.

"Is that what we are? Friends?" she asked softly as she looked at him.

He smiled back at her. "If that's what you want to be," he said. His brows furrowed and she wanted to reach up to touch him, smooth those wrinkles on his forehead but she restrained herself. "I know that there are suspicions about me. It must be why I've been in house arrest and kept in the dark about it." She wanted to dispute that but it would be a lie and it would be futile, so she just let him continue. "I know also that my credibility and identity is in question, but you can trust me, Paula. I don't want to cause you harm."

It was incongruous to the man they all told her he was, when he told her things like that, but it was hard not to believe him when he stared right into her soul so fervidly.

"I know," she told him, and it was more of a promise so she turned her hand so her palm was touching his and let him lace their fingers together. She sat there with him in comfortable silence, holding on to each other and marinating in the words that they'd let sit between them. 

His thumb made circles on her skin, soothing her.

"He was an asshole," she imparted, breaking the silence that stretched between them. He turned his head to look at her, his hand never leaving hers. She knew that he knew who she was talking about. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to stop her tears from falling.

Simon was not the only one suffering from trauma. She was no stranger to it, too.

"His name was Brad," she continued, sighing a trembling and watery sigh. "He was a Level 1 Lieutenant when we were paired off, and I was working in the Intelligence Agency then, somewhere a lot lower than my current position. I hadn't wanted to ride my Mother's coattails being a scientist herself and she was the director then, or let my Father influence anyone into giving me a higher position." 

She had wanted to work her way up, do right like her sister did. Wendy had worked her way to the top, now serving as one of the Honorable Justices and she made it there without their Father's interference or direct influence. She had long since capitulated to the fact that she would ever be anywhere without her name being dragged into it. Harry Abdul was once the most powerful man in this land, that was not a bearing so easily repudiated.

"We were matched by the State, as it generally were the case," she went on. "At first he was the paragon of charm, sweeping me off my feet, making me feel so lucky that I was paired off with him." She shook her head in self-deprecation. "We were happy for a while, and I really thought I loved him then, but we were young and our careers were important. We never had time for each other, but I honestly think we just never really made the time. It was the small things that made us drift apart, but more importantly, it was the fact that his career was more important. Always. I was expected at every gala, every recognition, to hang off of his arm, the daughter of the State General, his wife, but I wasn't to expect him in any of _my_ events, and I was not expected to receive his support or concern in my endeavor." Her eyes darkened, and she inhaled deeply, bracing herself, and then exhaled loudly, expending herself. "We were married all but six months when he showed his true colors. And marked mine." The memories made her shudder and she hated to think about this but she knew it was time to talk about it. She had kept it for so long. "It's the same broken tale you probably have heard before. He said he didn't mean it. He said he was sorry, that he just slipped, because hitting your wife with a backhand slap for disturbing you was just a slip." She rolled her eyes through repressed tears.

She felt Simon squeeze her hand softly. "You don't have to tell me if it hurts too much."

She shook her head. "It hurts more to keep it in," she confessed and he nodded, holding her hand tighter now. 

He pulled her to him, let her rest against his chest, and she knew that this was several shades of inappropriate but she'd be damned if she gave up the comfort he offered for propriety. Who was she trying to hide it from anyway? The teapot?

She felt him kiss the crown of her head and though she tried not to let it, the tears still fell - hot and wet down her cheeks. The tenderness of the moment was overwhelming.

"And then it happened again, and again, and again, and every time, he told me he was sorry, that it wasn't going to happen again, and that he just lost his mind. It was over the littlest of things too, over virtually nothing and I thought, maybe it really was so difficult to love me as a wife, maybe I am doing something wrong to set him off, that I might not be doing enough. Maybe I wasn't worthy of love. But I forgave him each time he said sorry and took him back, and it was the same thing over again Until one day, he hit too hard and I fell, bleeding. I think we were married for a little over a year by then. He had hurt me plenty of times before but never like that, never that hard. He was like a maniac, like he wasn't himself. What's funny is that I don't even remember what it was about or what tipped him off. But it was...harrowing, I was bleeding so much. He panicked then, and so he called my mother, and she came rushing to help. I was in such a bad way, and I think he knew...he killed two souls there."

The accompanying gasp to the realization was expected and Paula felt her heartbreak all over again. It was years ago, almost twenty years now, but the pain never really quite went away.

She never really got over it and she's found herself unwilling to put herself through that ever again. She threw herself to work, into finding and doing good in and for this world.

"Oh darling," Simon whispered against her hair, pulling her close until she was sitting on his lap, crying her eyes and heart out. "I'm so sorry."

He head bobbed once in acknowledgment, though he had nothing to be sorry for. It wasn't his fault, and it was a long time ago. Still, he was sorry for her pain, and so was she.

"I moved back to my parents' after that," she told him, minutes later, after she had let the tattered pieces of her heart find their way out of her eyes in rolling hot tears. "And I never talked to him, or heard from him, until maybe half a year later when I received a call from the center, and they told me he was dead in battle. And I have never felt so relieved in my life. And I was so guilty because he was my husband but I was relieved that he was _dead_. Then I got so angry at myself for being guilty because he hurt me, he made me lose my... we didn't even know if it was a girl or a boy, and then I hated myself because I was angry for being guilty. I hated myself for feeling so many emotions and then for wanting to grieve him." She shrugged. "I hated him for making me hate myself."

Simon hugged her and held her as she finally cried and liberated herself from the prison of her own doing. He held her tighter every time her sobs renewed or became louder. He held her as she pulled herself into tentative silence, broken only by her hiccups and tiny mewls.

Then he kissed her hair again and held her even tighter.

"It was never your fault," he told her in whispers, his tone kind but firm and sincere. "You were loveable then and you're worthy of love even now. He didn't deserve you, darling, not the strong and brave woman you were then, and sure as hell not the stronger and braver woman that you have become now. You were forged from steel and gilded, Paula Abdul. Don't you forget how brilliant you are."

Paula didn't know what compelled her to feel comfortable enough to cry in the arms of Simon Cowell that night, but whatever it was, she didn't care. She had never felt freer and safer than she did in his arms.

So she cried, for the woman she was, for all that she had lost, for the life she had created, for the chances that were no longer, she cried and cried, and Simon only held her tighter.

**.:::.**

Simon was a self-proclaimed apathetic man. He was never the one for emotional interludes, and he never comforted anyone outside of family, but Paula, Paula was unprecedented. He actually cared about her.

He held her through her tears, something told him that she hadn’t spoken about this to anyone, or at all, and though he knew very little of emotional breakdowns and the like, he felt her and her heartbreak sent little pangs in his heart that he didn’t really know how to explain, or care to. All he knew was that she was there, crying her heart out and he wanted to do everything he could to bring him some comfort.

It was late when she finally calmed down, and she lay in his arms, dozing lightly, sedated, though the tear tracks marred her beautiful face. He kept his hand on her back, stroking up and down soothingly. He remained quiet, just soaking in the moment and letting her know that he could see her, he got her, and he was here for her.

He felt her shift in his arms, though she made no move to vacate his lap and he wouldn’t ask her to. She lifted her head so she could look at him, her eyes soft and grateful.

“Thank you, Simon,” she murmured softly, pressing her head against his shoulder affectionately. He gave her a nod but otherwise remained quiet. Then she continued, “Were you...ever paired off?”

Tit for tat, quid pro quo. It seemed fair, so he divulged.

“Yes,” he admitted, nodding. He sighed deeply, because this wasn’t something he liked to talk about, either. Not for the same reasons, but it was something that he wanted to remember. “It was...nothing short of a disaster. We were paired off and she was...docile, too docile, I guess. I didn’t love her, but I’d thought it was a good enough match.”

“What happened?” she asked, her voice raspy from her tears.

“She was not all that she made herself out to be,” he replied. “You know how Marriage Matches work. They match us on the same levels, and inter-level marriages were prohibited.” Another one of those screwed up things their government did. “It turned out she was not really from Level 1, and bribed someone from Data Analytics to put her through the code. My mother did her due diligence, and that’s the only reason we found out.”

He didn’t disclose anymore that she had faked a pregnancy, out of fear of touching a sore nerve with Paula. He didn’t need to say anything about that anyway, it was nothing but a farce.

“I’m sorry,” Paula murmured. He nodded but felt it was unnecessary. He wasn’t sorry to let that one slip. It was nothing but a good riddance on his part.

He kissed her forehead instead. “It’s all good now. I’ve lived such a different life since.”

She nodded in agreement. They were silent again for a moment, before Paula shifted again, lifting her arm and checking the time on her wristwatch. He thought he heard her gasp before she was moving up and out of his lap. He immediately felt the loss and missed the warmth and weight of her.

“I need to go,” she said with urgency, her palms running down her skirt, smoothing it. 

Simon decided that he wasn’t ready to let the night end. “You don’t want to have dinner first?” he asked, worried that he sounded a little too desperate for his liking.

“I…” she trailed off, and worried the ribbon of her blouse. “It’s late. I have to get home.”

Simon knew it was an excuse, a flimsy one at that, because her home was in the same building and she needed not drive her way. In fact there hadn't been a need to do any driving on this planet for a while now.

"You can stay the night if you're too tired," he offered though he wasn't sure why. He knew she was upset and he didn't want her to be alone right now. Not necessarily because he didn't trust her to be alone, but because it had been an incredibly emotional night.

And he realized _he_ didn't want to be alone. 

Her eyes were conflicted and he knew why. His reputation as a ladies man had preceded him. It wasn't surprising that she was hesitant. But he wasn't asking her for that. He just wanted to make sure she was okay.

"I have a guest room you could stay in," he told her, trying to sound more conversational than pleading. "I just don't want you to be alone tonight."

Worries and doubts melted away, and her visage calmed down considerably. She smiled softly at him. "Thank you for tonight, Simon. I could never put to words how much I appreciate it. But I'd rather go home. It's been an extremely long day."

He didn't push any further. He knew a no when he heard it.

He nodded at her and smiled. "At least let me walk you out," he offered. "At least I can see the outside from the door." It was a lousy attempt at humor, but she smiled anyway.

"Goodnight Simon," she bid him when they made it to his door. "I'll see you tomorrow." She reached up and kissed his cheek. 

He grinned and pulled her in his arms. "Have a good rest, Paula," he said. "See you tomorrow."

He watched until she disappeared from the corner, a giddy smile on his lips.

**.:::.**

Paula was sorely tempted to stay the night at Simon's and let him nurse her bruised and heightened emotions back to its usual pallidity, but she knew she shouldn't. In fact, she should be keeping her guards up. If there was one thing that Kara was right about, it was keeping her guard up. Instead, Paula was straddling the lines of propriety, and blurring the boundaries. Even if Simon was not a metamorph and was simply a traumatized man, she was studying him. Not to mention that nothing was ever going to come out of it.

She needed to keep her feelings in check. Even if she trusted Simon, she knew she could never trust anyone completely. Kara was one of the many examples that cemented that fact.

She let herself in her home unit, sighing as the emptiness greeted her once more. It hadn't bothered her for a long while now, she'd learned to live with it, but playing nursemaid to a potential 'traitor to the state' had brought back a surge of feelings she had thought she had long since buried. 

She moved to her kitchen and found that she had no appetite for food tonight. She was exhausted, drained by such an emotional day that she just wanted to climb on her bed and sleep for the next two decades.

She intended to do just that, but her communications unit started ringing, and she moved to her couch and pressed on the green button. A hologram of her sister popped up before her, and she smiled softly, always happy to see Wendy despite such an emotionally taxing day.

She shifted to a more comfortable position and removed her shoes, smiling at her sister. "Hi, stranger," she greeted cordially, her voice still soft and quiet. Her sister has always had a sixth sense where Paula was concerned, which made sense because Wendy had practically raised her. It was a sad day when Wendy had to leave their home to go to the Academy of Higher Education.

"Hello," Wendy greeted back with a smile. She lived a content life with her husband, Greg, and two sons - Austin and Alex - both of whom have now gone to join the army. She leaned in close as though she was trying to see Paula clearer.

"What?" Paula asked self consciously, reaching up to touch the end of her immaculate ponytail.

"Have you been crying?" Wendy asked plainly. And there went her sixth sense again.

Paula huffed. She must look like a right mess. "It's been a long day," she admitted, vaguely, though she did want to tell her sister more. She just didn't trust that these lines were not tapped into.

"Want to meet tomorrow for lunch?" Wendy asked her knowingly.

Paula nodded, before setting up the time. She needed to talk to her sister, anyone who didn't set her heart in an erratic rhythm every time they smiled at her. Someone who was _not_ Simon Cowell.

Anyway, she had been planning to take a day off the following day and she didn't want to hang out at Simon's because right at that moment, their relationship hung on a precarious balance that she did not want to tip over. She wasn't going to stroke the embers to a full-blown fire. 

No, for now she needed to put a bit of distance between them and reel her emotions in. She'd think about what it means to her later, but for now, the more lines she drew and the longer the boundaries she set between them, the better.


	6. SIX

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boundaries become tenuous and tentative.

**SIX**

Paula woke up from the longest sleep she’s had in a few years still feeling exhausted. It was no wonder, she’d put herself through an emotional wringer last night. She had not been that open and vulnerable for a long time, not even to herself. 

She rolled on the bed and then looked for the little remote that controlled most of the electronics of the house. She pressed the button to draw the curtains a little bit to let in the light. It must be late in the day, because the sun was already high up (it was never as high as the olden days anymore). Groaning, she sleepily climbed out of bed and looked for her slippers. 

It was a bit chilly, despite the late afternoon because the temperature ran more mercurial these days. Pulling on her robe, she tied it tightly around her waist, before she made it to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. Coffee was one of those highly regulated things and though she wanted to, she rarely ever indulged it. Today though, she did, because if she was going to feel like crap, she was at least going to drown it with coffee. 

When she finished her cup, she saw about beginning her day in earnest.

**.:::.**

Simon found himself walking idly around his home as the day passed by. He had woken up earlier than normal, and with nothing to do and nowhere to go, he'd found himself roaming around where the four walls of his home contained him. He had hoped Paula would come to his home earlier, but with the events of last night, he figured she would need to pull back a bit.

Last night had been exhausting for him and he knew that it was exhausting for her.

He walked from room to room, re-familiarizing himself to the home he had lived in his entire adulthood. There were so many memories fitted in every nook and cranny of this house, ingrained in every wall, every chair, and every furniture, memories that he cherished and memories that he wanted to forget. All the memories that forged him and shaped him to be the man that he was now.

He moved to the couch where they had been sitting on last night, as they shared the deepest and hidden parts of their pasts. It was a long time since he had thought about his failed relationship, even longer when he’d given much thought to marriage. He’d found through much introspection that he was not the marrying type, or the family man that he probably should have been, and he definitely had kept different sorts of company in his life, some more illicit than others, but sometimes it did get lonely.

He knew that Paula felt much the same - he saw it in her eyes, the loneliness, the longing. He hoped that he kept her friendship even after all this. It would be such a terrible day if he lost it. That was, if he didn’t get executed for the same reason they’d kept him under house arrest.

At noon, he had a quick lunch, wondering why Paula had not dropped by yet, but he knew better than to expect. She might be babysitting him for the moment, but that was not the only thing she had on her plate. She was one of the, if not the most, powerful women in the State. She shouldn’t even have to babysit him every day, but she did. He hoped that it was partly because she had started to enjoy his company as much as he did hers.

Still, it was early yet, because sometimes Paula came by later in the afternoon, after office hours, and he understood that, so maybe she would come by later, and there was nothing to fret over.

He started to walk over to his office, maybe to read some stupid novel or something else to pass the time, and was about to step in when his door opened. He moved back and turned, and found himself face to face with the person he hadn’t thought he’d be seeing anytime soon.

“Nick?” he asked, unable to keep the bewilderment from his voice.

“Hello Simon,” Nicholas said with a terse smile. “Long time no see.”

Long time, indeed.

**.:::.**

Paula placed the last of the dishes down the table. She had made a simple lunch, and added some fruits, for her and her sister. She moved back to appraise her handiwork, when the door opened and the loud clicking of heels was heard through.

That was probably Wendy.

“Hello, baby sister,” Wendy greeted happily as she approached, her arms already wide open and a smile stretched upon her lips. 

Paula smiled back, as she moved to meet her sister halfway. “Hello to you too,” she said, bridging the gap to finally embrace Wendy. “It’s been a long time.”

Wendy held her tight for a moment, and when she pulled back, she raised her hands to cup Paula’s cheeks. “How are you? Have you been eating well?”

Paula frowned and pulled away. “I’m fine, and of course I have, mother,” she teased as she caught Wendy’s hand in hers and pulled her to the table. “And we’re about to eat now.” They both took their seats across each other. “How have you been?”

“It’s been alright, pretty busy, with this whole metamorph business. Simon Fuller has been putting pressure on us to decide on a case they have not even filed yet,” she replied with haughtiness in her tone. Wendy was never the biggest fan of the three musketeers, and she was even less of a fan of all the politics. “If it was so urgent, they should file an indictment.”

Paula knew exactly  _ who _ the case was about, and she really was rather flummoxed that they haven’t formally charged him with anything. They were probably waiting for her thesis, any formal and legitimate proof that she could provide. 

“They need more proof before they can file it,” she murmured in a way of a reply. She sighed as she reached for the salad. “They want to be  _ fair _ that way.” None of this was fair though, there was no hiding that.

“So you’re involved in it?” Wendy asked, although she did not look one bit surprised about that.

Paula nodded. “They sent me to observe Major General Cowell,” she responded with heaviness. She felt as though every thought of Simon weighed on her like a heavy boulder. “I’ve been visiting him to keep him under close surveillance.”

“Why you?” Wendy’s brows furrowed as she chewed thoughtfully. It was the very same question that Paula kept asking herself.

“Because I studied metamorphs?” she muttered, although that justification no longer seemed enough. Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “I don’t know, it was all Ken’s orders. So I’ve been keeping Simon company for a little while, monitoring.”

Wendy looked at her, intrigued, and a little bit incredulous, like she didn’t believe that it was all that was. It  _ was _ , despite everything that might suggest otherwise. It  _ has _ to be.

“Monitoring, right,” she repeated, her voice nonchalant, but her eyes were a different story. She stabbed at an asparagus. “Simon? So you’re on a first-name basis now?”

Paula narrowed her eyes at her sister, knowing that she was trying to suss out something from her, but Paula didn’t know what, and didn’t know why. Nothing was going on. 

“We’ve become friends,” she said. The look in Wendy’s eyes told her that she remained to be convinced, and Paula knew the peril of the path she’s taking with regards to her relationship with Simon or whatever it was, but Paula didn’t want to dwell in it. She didn’t want to stress over it. “Or friendly, at least. We’re spending a lot of time together because as I said, I’ve been sent to observe him.”

“And that’s got nothing to do with why you were crying last night?” Wendy had never missed a beat, not when it came to Paula.

Paula rolled her eyes, but the memories of last night’s experience subdued her. The emotions were high and the tenderness was unexpected, and if it were up to her, she wouldn’t want to think about over and over again, but it did happen, and it wasn’t something she was ever likely to forget.

“Not exactly,” Paula mumbled, as she moved back to rest her back against the chair, shifting in a more comfortable position. “Simon and I talked, is all.” Wendy didn’t say anything but her eyes said everything. “We talked about my marriage.”

The gasp that escaped Wendy’s lips was soft, but Paula heard it, and if she was honest, even she had been surprised. She barely even talked to Wendy about it, she’d kept it all under lock and key for the longest time, refusing to even see a psychologist for the trauma of it all, but she had talked to Simon about it. Of course Wendy was surprised, if not perplexed.

“You’re awfully close if you were able to talk to him about it.”

They weren’t, not really, or at least not that much, but they were close enough. Paula nodded her head in the affirmative, before shaking her head no, and then sighing. She raised her palm and let her forehead fall against the soft underside of her hand. It was all so complicated now.

“Is there something going on about you two?” Wendy asked. She was not judging, or at least she didn’t sound like it, but she was curious, and rightly so.

“He’s not the man everyone said he was,” she told her sister. She rubbed her palm against her face and sighed once more. “He’s much, much different, and from my experience with him - he’s not...I guess I never really knew him, but that man...he’s the most human man I’ve ever known.”

The men around Paula, even her father, sometimes forgot that they were nothing but men, vulnerable to human folly, and culpable to err, that they could never be  _ always _ right, but Simon knew. He knew that he was just a man, and he accepted and held himself fully accountable for his mistakes. He thought of himself, the fight and flight response ingrained in him because he was a soldier, but he cared about more than just his expeditions, more than just this way of life that they’d paved. She wasn’t sure if he had always been like that (past accounts and encounters with him told her a resounding no), but he was like that  _ now _ , and that part of him, that part of him she wanted to save.

Wendy nodded. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, or that you shouldn’t believe that, but…” Wendy paused and she looked pensive for a moment, before she continued. “You can’t discount the things that nag at you just because you want to believe something vehemently...sometimes our views get skewed and wool gathers before our eyes.”

Paula knew her sister was right, but still, her pique increased anyway. “What does that mean?” she asked, annoyed. It felt like her sister was questioning her judgment.

“Nothing,” Wendy answered, backing down and throwing her hands up in the air in surrender. “Just be careful, for your own good.” Wendy looked earnest, and Paula felt her ire ebb away, and became more like a wave that licked away at her, but nevertheless became less intrusive.

Paula nodded, catching her sister’s hand in hers. “I promise,” she said fervently, smiling at her sister and hoping it was reassuring enough.

**.:::.**

Simon nursed a glass of scotch between his hands, staring at anything but the houseguest he’d found himself foisted with so very suddenly. It had been a long time since he had seen this particular brother, the last time had ended far more bitterly than Simon would have preferred.

Although Nicholas was a Level 1 Brigadier General, he’d chosen to live on the other side of the compound, away from the rest of his family. Julie, their mother, had been so brokenhearted, and Simon had been chagrined to the point that he’d completely ignored his brother’s existence. Nicholas never seemed to care, either way.

Nicholas cleared his throat, catching Simon’s attention, and Simon spares him a glance and a raised eyebrow, but not much else. Instead, Simon took a large gulp of his drink and then stood up to refill it. He didn’t know exactly why Nicholas had thought to pay him a visit, but he also knew that he was about to find out.

“Simon,” Nick called out, and there it was.

Simon ignored him and made his way back to the chair he had been sitting on moments earlier. Nick could talk if he wanted to, but Simon had no desire yet to do the same. Of course, he wanted to make up with his brother, had wanted to for a long time now, and he had been contemplating it even more in the past few days (or at least, ever since he had come back from his previous mission). He’d wanted to go and find Nick and have a talk with him, but he didn’t expect Nick to beat him to it. Being thrown into this when he was not prepared had thrown him for a loop.

“I heard about your predicament,” Nick finally said, not beating around the bush.

It wasn’t always this bad between them. Out of the three of them, it was he and Nick that was the closest because they were so close in age. When their father died, Tony was already in High Ed, and it was he and Nick who had seen each other through the grief. 

But Nick had been stupid. He had been angry at Simon for kicking his ex-fiance to the curb when they had found out that she had played them for a fool. Simon had thought nothing of it at first, until he realized that Nicholas was so angry because  _ he _ slept with that vile woman. Simon had not been angry on his behalf - he really didn’t care either way- but he had been angry on behalf of Nick’s wife, of his children. Simon had felt Nick’s remorse before he had put it to words, about it all, about sleeping with someone when he was already married, of sleeping with Simon’s farcical fiance, and of breaking their relationship over a woman who was...well not all she had cracked herself up to be. Simon was too angry about it all, and on top of that, Julie had clearly been so heartbroken, and all of it due to Nick’s stupidity, but he looked back at it all now and realized that he would have forgiven Nick, and that he had. To be honest, it had been both their stupid pride that got in the way. Not that he would have admitted that before.

“Very well,” Simon said, uncertain of how he was supposed to respond to that. He supposed he could deny it, but Nick wasn’t really asking, was he?

“We can challenge the State,” Nick suggested with earnest. He looked ablaze with fury, the fury that Simon had long since resigned himself from. What will be will be. “They have no right to hold you in like this. You know that it’s all Fuller’s doing. He’s always had it for you.”

Simon nodded, unable to deny any of it. Nicholas was right. There had always been a power struggle between him and Fuller, because Fuller always worried about his position in the State, and the fact that Simon seemed to be a likely candidate for the State General. Simon riled him on because he wanted to prove that he can. They were civil on the outside, but inside, that relationship was rotten.

However, this was far beyond the powers that the simpleton could even fathom to reach, and so it wasn’t exactly all true, was it?

“Is this your contrived way of apologizing to me?” he asked then, because the last thing that Simon wanted was to drag his family into it. There were far more important things.

“Is that your contrived way of accepting it?” he asked, smirking now, because even if they didn’t say it, this small gesture had lifted much of the tension that had clouded their relationship for so long.

Simon smirked back, raising a glass at his brother. 

They didn’t need the words. 

**.:::.**

When Wendy left, Paula spent her time puttering around her house and catching up on the things that had been left on the wayside as her days turned blurry and things piled on top of the other. She rarely ever took days off, and even the weekends were spent strategizing, studying mission plans, and overseeing preparations of any launches. It was the way of life now, and she has dedicated her own for the State’s survival. It was exhausting, sure, but it was all done to make sure that they won’t wake up dead one day.

Today, she had given herself the day off. It was peculiar for her, and she had received a message from Kara asking if she was alright, and another from Nigel asking how she was. She had ignored them, she’d sent her notice the night before, and they can handle it themselves. Today, she didn’t want to think about work, didn’t want to think about her little project, and she sure as hell did not want to think about Simon.

It was confusing, truly, to find herself so involved when she had tried her best to be detached. She had somewhat backed herself into a corner, because she had never seen Simon as a subject and she had let her emotions get the better of her instead of looking at all of this from an objective point of view. If she was befuddled, she truly had no one else but herself to blame. Unless she blamed the Three Musketeers, and she was happy enough to do just that.

She would happily blame them for the inconvenience, and dare she say it - the hyper fixation she had found herself having, but when she went out the next morning and found herself moving to Simon’s floor instead of moving towards her office like she had originally planned, she’d felt as though she should at least partially blame herself. When she did the same thing the day after that, she knew she couldn’t keep making them her scapegoat.

She made a complete roundabout and marched herself to her office and kept herself busy all day to keep her mind off Simon and everything surrounding that entire circumstance. 

“So,” she heard him before she saw him, and she looked up to see Ryan standing on her door, looking like the cat that ate the canary. “What is this about?” He tipped the flowers he was holding towards her general direction. 

Flowers were extremely hard to find these days, and the ones they found were not much of a variation on a theme. Ryan looked like he knew something that Paula should but didn’t.

“Why don’t you tell me?” she said, confused. Why would Ryan be bringing her flowers?

Ryan moved towards her desk and waggled his eyebrows and he took the seat across her. He kept holding the flowers, and Paula raised an eyebrow.

“Why is Cowell sending you flowers?” he asked her, and she was surprised but tried not to show it to him. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. “I didn’t know you knew each other.”

Paula struggled to keep a neutral expression on her face. “We work together, Ryan, of course, we know each other,” she said with a shrug.

“Yes, and all you have ever done every time your paths crossed was bicker endlessly,” Ryan muttered, and it wasn’t completely untrue - sometimes they did ignore each other completely though. “Which now begs the question of why he’s sending you flowers.”

Paula bit down on her bottom lip nervously. She didn’t need this additional stress. “I’ve been helping him...with the trauma is all,” she said, and that was not a lie. She  _ was _ helping him, or she was supposed to at least.

"With trauma, I see," he muttered, though by his tone, Paula could tell that he was seeing things entirely in a different manner. Paula didn't think she wanted to even know.

"I _am_ a Level 1 Psychologist, you know that, don't you Ryan?" she asked him pointedly, wondering how many times she had to tell that someone. This was quickly becoming so very exhausting. 

Ryan’s grin became salacious, and Paula was hard-pressed not to throw something on his head. He was being deliberately obnoxious.

“I didn’t know you and him were close,” she said then, turning the tables around. She didn’t know they were  _ that _ close, anyway, because she knew they ran the same circles, and she  _ did _ get his accounts of Simon and the way he used to be before they suspected him of being a metamorph.

“We’re close enough,” he said. “Are you?”

Paula sighed and placed the document she was reading on the table. “I don’t believe that is any of your business, do you?” she asked him, using her director voice, and for a second he looked visibly shaken. She gave herself a pat on her back internally.

Ryan handed the flowers to her, and she could tell he was watching her face carefully for any change in expression by the way his eyes narrowed, but it was as if she was ever going to let him see anything. She liked Ryan and they were  _ friendly _ , never as close as Randy or even Kara, but he was likable enough. Although she knew how much of a chatterbox he was, and she didn’t trust him enough.

“Thank you, Ryan,” she told him primly as she straightened her back and sat up on her chair. She gave him her most serious face. “Is there anything else?”

“You’re a spoilsport, Paula,” he retorted, though there was a teasing tone to his voice.

Paula raised an eyebrow again. “That’s Director Abdul to you, Deputy Engineer,” she told him. “If that’s all, I’m rather busy at the moment.”

Ryan shook his head but sighed in resignation and then he stood up from his chair anyway. “Fine, don’t tell me,” he said. “I’ll just ask Cowell myself.”

She lifted her gaze just to torture him, smirking. “Fine, good luck with that,” she said and then watched as he walked away with a huff.

When he left the room and closed the door, Paula lifted the flowers from the table and gave it a sniff. She finally let slip of the smile she had been holding in. 

**.:::.**

Simon wrestled with his common sense when he’d sent a message to Ryan Seacrest, of all people, and asked him to drop by so he could deliver the flowers to Paula. It was an idiotic thing to do, but Simon was fresh out of choices. He didn’t trust anyone else to do it, but then again, most days he barely trusted Ryan. But at least, Ryan knew when to be discreet.

The shit-eating grin that Ryan gave him when he had asked him was almost enough to make Simon change his mind, but Simon had not seen Paula in two days. Although he knew that she had more important things to do, she was a Director, after all, he’d come to expect,  _ hope _ , that she would come by. He understood but it didn’t stop him from being disappointed whenever she didn’t.

Good God, it was only two days.

Simon would say he was astonished to find Ryan standing in front of his door at the end of the day, but that would be less than the truth. Paula had probably left him hanging when he had interrogated her, and he was here now to grill Simon next. Tough luck. If Ryan asked, Simon wouldn’t know what to tell him, and even if Simon did, he would never tell Ryan. Ryan must have been a radio or television host in another life, because he certainly had the mouth of one.

“Spill it, Cowell,” Ryan demanded as he walked in Simon’s home unit just as soon as Simon opened the door.

“Hello, Weasel, good evening to you too,” Simon greeted derisively, following Ryan into the living room. “How are you? I’m fine Simon, thank you, how about you?” He rolled his eyes.

Ryan frowned at him. “Hello Lord Cowell, how are you? Yes, great to hear you’re well. There is that enough?” he asked with equal sarcasm. “Why are you giving Paula Abdul flowers. Last time I checked you thought she was overbearing.”

Simon blanched. He wasn’t proud of his impression of Paula and how he had jumped into a conclusion about her. But that was then, he knew her better now.

“She was helping me, I thought it’d be a nice gesture to give her flowers. Don’t give yourself an aneurysm thinking too hard about it,” Simon said before he walked away to get a stiff drink or two. It was the only way he could even deal with the kind of conversation Ryan apparently wanted.

“I helped you and I’m not seeing anything for me,” Ryan grumbled, accepting the drink that Simon offered him.

Simon smirked. “Sorry, did I hurt your feelings? I’ll make sure to send you flowers to your house to help soothe your injured feelings.”

It was Ryan’s turn to roll his eyes. He looked a bit put-off, and Simon admitted, though not out loud, that it was rightly so. He did ask him a favor and Simon had done nothing but sass him. Simon let out a gust of air in resignation.

“Stop being an asshole,” Ryan muttered.

Simon threw his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry,” he said, almost sincerely. Ryan still did not have the right to interrogate him, but he was willing to give him some bone, just enough for him to chomp on. “Look, Paula is a friend. She’s been helping me with the trauma of my last expedition.”

Simon knew that Ryan knew the circumstances surrounding that last expedition and Simon’s return. He knew that Ryan could easily turn his back and believe all of it. Simon was not above himself to believe that he wouldn’t have suspected should the tables have been turned. But Ryan was a loyal friend, despite his flaws, and Simon appreciated that.

“And I don’t know if it’s all done and said now with regards to our sessions,” he continued, though he used the word sessions cautiously, because it wasn’t exactly that but he didn’t know what to call it. “And I just want to show my appreciation and being held captive here, I can’t do much of anything, you understand?”

Ryan nodded, and was silent for all of five glorious seconds. “Do you like her?” he asked then.

Simon swallowed nervously, unsure of how to traverse through this particular landmine safely. He sighed loudly. “She’s likable enough, isn’t she, underneath all that...initial haughtiness?” It wasn’t exactly true that Paula was haughty, but she was hard-headed and set on her beliefs and for the man that Simon had been, it was all very hard to swallow.

Ryan nodded agreeably, though he didn’t speak.

“I like her, but I reckon so do you,” he added carefully, looking at Ryan, watching his expression.

Ryan grinned then. “And I reckon, not as much as you,” he told Simon, and if Simon felt his heart jump at those words, well Ryan didn’t need to know that did he?


	7. SEVEN

**SEVEN**

Paula didn’t feel like doing much that night. She was exhausted - physically, mentally, and emotionally. It had been a long day, hell, a long, tedious month, and even if they granted her a six-month leave of absence to rest - which they would not - it was not close to being enough.

She wished she turned this stupid project down more fiercely, threw a fit at being forced to do it, and walked away. It was not like she wasn’t a woman of considerable power. She had enough hold to get her way. But she had been curious, she had wanted to make sure that regardless if it was true or not, Simon had a fair fighting chance, someone in his corner who didn’t want to just dispatch him without thought. She had thought she could be that beacon of fairness. Apparently not. She was in, far in deeper than she ever thought it would be.

Her eyes flitted to the flowers that Simon had given her via courier Ryan, and though she tried not to, her lips turned up on its own volition. Her heart was beating in a rhythm that felt new but entirely familiar, and though she had an inkling of what that means, she didn’t want to decipher any of it. She wasn’t going to let herself keep drowning in emotions she had no business feeling. 

She had known him, truly known him, in all but a span of one month, but it feels more, it almost feels like she had known him for twenty years, maybe more. It felt premature to say that or to even have this sort of emotion for Simon, but she was not deluded to think she was in love with him. Whatever she felt for him, it was strong, but it wasn’t that...no, it was not (yet, her mind stubbornly supplied but she didn’t want to give that one a voice out). She was not, after all, twenty-five anymore, and she had taken off the rose-colored glasses that had clouded her first marriage. She knew better now. She knew better than to let herself fall into anything with eyes closed and head first.

She released a sigh as she felt her mind spiral out of her control. This wouldn't be a problem if she had kept her distance but she didn't, and here she was. She sighed again and moved to sit on her couch, trying to find comfort and try to settle in for the night.

She had shed her suit of armor and put her hair down. It was getting much longer than she was used to and it was taking longer and longer to fix every morning. Paula wondered when austerity had become her norm but figured it was too late in the night to go back far into her life. She raised her hand and pulled her hair up, but decided against tying it, and then just left it as it was, long and free down her back.

She should not let it get to her, not this much and not this hard but it was hard not to because her life felt like it has been upended by that one small decision that was forced into her. Maybe she was being melodramatic about it all, and perhaps she was overthinking it, but how could she not? A life of a man, metamorph or not, hinged on her, on her judgment that she couldn’t help but admit to herself, had been clouded by the very same man.

She was at a loss on how to proceed. 

She thought maybe she should drop the case, she knew other people who would and could do the job. Perhaps they would not be as knowledgeable as she was, but it didn’t really matter. She was knowledgeable, more so than anyone in the state, and look where that got her.

Her head was spinning from all the adult decisions she had to make, and she paused her mind for a moment, moving to get up from the couch. She walked into the kitchen, and went straight to the pantry, and foraged her well-stocked cabinet for some wine. She picked her favorite one and fished it out.

Her mind drifted back to the last time she saw Simon. She had been drinking then, too, and had been vulnerable, open, earnest. She shouldn’t have shed so much of herself and shared it to the one man she shouldn’t have been sharing it to, idiot that she was, but she had.

She missed him, and the implications of that were not lost on her, but most definitely to be dealt with at a later date, and she shouldn’t. She shouldn’t but she did anyway. And she imposed this whole distancing herself away from him for a reason, a good one she was sure (it was, but her mind didn’t want to recognize it in the midst of her longing for his company).

She was being an idiot, she realized as she stood in the middle of her kitchen, holding on to her bottle of wine, and missing the man she shouldn’t. She was an adult and despite her growing fondness for him, surely, she could separate that from her duties to the state? She had been able to somewhat separate herself from the power of her father’s name...and that had been a herculean effort, but she had, and she could do this.

At the back of her mind, a voice nagged at her asking what she would do if things became worse and they put Simon on trial, but that was a possibility she didn’t have to deal with yet. Maybe she could prove his innocence? Either way, she would cross that bridge when she got there. For now, all that this self-imposed distance was doing to her was making her miserable and it was completely unnecessary.

Her younger self would have balked at her now, but people change, they grow, and if this wasn’t some sort of character development on her part, then what else could be?

Tightening her grip on the bottle of wine, she made her decision. She crossed the little distance between her kitchen and her front door, and before she could change her mind, she walked out and locked the front door. She walked to the lift and pressed the button of Simon’s floor, and when the doors opened, she didn’t hesitate to walk out and move towards Simon’s unit.

She did all before she could back out.

The Private standing outside of Simon’s home nodded at her and without a word, let her in. She didn’t know how Simon would react. Chances were that he was completely angry at her for sort of disappearing on him.

As soon as she stepped foot in the living room, her eyes met Simon’s who had been on the couch, staring despondently into space. The manner and the speed in which his expressions had changed would have been amusing if only she didn’t miss him as fiercely as did, and her heart didn’t clench the way it had.

Damn stupid emotions.

“Paula?” he asked once he got through the shock that remained visible in his face. “What are you doing here?”

She smiled tentatively and raised the bottle of wine. “Fancy a drink?” she asked him, mentally admonishing herself afterward because what a stupid question.

He looked poised to reject or even argue, but he tilted to the side and regarded her for all of five seconds before sighing. In the end, he went with an invitation, or an olive branch anyway.

“Have a seat,” he told her as he did the opposite and went to stand, going to fetch the glasses from his kitchen. When he came back, he had two stemmed glasses and handed her one. “Rather late for a house call?”

It was a question and not a statement, and Paula nodded in the affirmative, smiling at him though she was sure it was more of a grimace.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been so busy lately,” she said in lieu of an excuse, and they both know it’s a lie, but they both just let it slide. There was no point unpacking the real reason why she stayed away. If he didn’t know, then she wasn’t going to volunteer to tell him.

He nodded, and then took the bottle, popping it open. He poured for her and then himself before he sat back and let the silence settle between them.

Paula pulled her legs underneath her and sighed, taking a long sip of her drink. At the back of her head, a voice screamed at her to get the hell out.

She tamped it down and didn’t listen. Why should she?

She was having such a nice time.

**.:::.**

He was having such a nice time.

And though he didn’t want to, he couldn’t command his feelings or stop himself from feeling the way that he did now. He had always thought that Paula was beautiful, even long before he had any real interest in getting to know her. He definitely knew she was smart, even when he thought she was being a nutjob with her agenda and humanist propaganda. But that was then, now he just realized that she was passionate and she had the biggest heart of anyone he had ever known.

So even if he wanted to send her away, if only to preserve himself from the definite chaos that was about to ensue - not just his life, but his feelings, and where this relationship was about to go (and where he wanted to go though he would never admit it aloud), he could not.

He hadn’t expected her to come, had thought she had all but abandoned him because even if it was just a few days, he was as cut off from the outside world as he could be, and all the grim and horrible thoughts plagued him with no signs of ever letting up. He turned his head sideways and looked at her intently, noticing for the first time how casual and laid back she looked. She was wearing a pair of pants and a t-shirt, and her usual heels were discarded for a comfortable looking pair of flats. And her hair...he had always known it would be long and luxurious, despite the intricate way she insisted on making it, but this was...it looked like strands of brown silk, and he longed to run his fingers down on it.

He took a long sip of his wine and pressed down on the urge.

“I’ve never seen your hair down like that,” he said instead, still trying to keep his hands to himself and off her hair.

She turned her body so she was looking at him and blushed prettily, making his heart skip a beat, or two.

She smoothed her hand down a section of her hair and looked away. “It’s getting too long and I have to put it up to get it out of the way,” she told him in a way of explanation.

He smiled. “You look beautiful,” he told her, whispering as if afraid to break the moment, maybe he was. It wasn’t the style, but more of the casualness of it, of the way, that it made her look like she was freer and less restricted. He liked that look on her.

Unable to resist any longer, he reached out and tucked a few loose strands back behind her ear. She smiled nervously and blushed again. 

She laughed, though it sounded more nervous than anything else. “Thanks,” she said before moving away, subtly, and turning sideways once more.

“Nicholas came to see me,” he told her conversationally, allowing for a change in the subject to put her at ease.

She knew he was estranged with his brother, there was no way that she didn’t. And he watched her nod before taking a long sip.

“How long has it been since you last saw him?” she asked, making no excuses and handing out no apologies. It was the way that it was, he wasn’t expecting either of the two.

“Too long,” he replied, not bothering to count the years anymore. It didn’t matter. “But we made up.”

She smiled. “That’s nice,” she said and turned to look at him once more. The sincerity in her eyes blew Simon away but he didn’t dare let on. He didn’t want her to know exactly how much she could influence him. He didn’t want her to bear that particular weight. “I’m so glad for you. I know you missed him and I’m sure he missed you too.”

“I missed you,” he murmurs in a sweet whisper, for it was a secret, one that he had not intended to share but did, and he couldn’t take it back, couldn’t pluck the words from the air and swallow them in his mouth.

She looked surprised...maybe even aghast, but he didn’t let it deter him, maybe somehow, in some way, deep inside her mind and heart she missed him too.

One could only hope.

**.:::.**

Paula wondered for a second if she heard him wrong, but when she looked into his deep brown eyes, she could only see sincerity.

She missed him too, though she did not want to say it aloud, so she stared at him - hoping, wondering if her eyes would say what her mouth could not.

She didn’t really know who moved first or how it happened, but suddenly, his lips were on hers, his fingers were wrapped around her hair, and she was being kissed within an inch of her life. 

It was soft and tender at first, a molding of lips, a swipe of the tongue. Her arms looped around his neck, and she’s pulling him closer, closer until she was sitting on his lap, and his hands were gripping her waist. Simon tasted like wine and mint, and something that she couldn’t figure out, but decided that it was just Simon.

She felt him nibble at her bottom lip and her mouth opened of their own volition, allowing for his tongue to slip in silkily. She had not been kissed like this, or at all, in so long, and she felt her arousal start to lick at her like flames beginning to ignite. 

_God_.

Simon’s hand fell to her bottom and the other moved to cup her breast, and she, too, moved, aligning herself to his sex, grinding slightly down on his jeans, as his mouth suckled on her tongue. Her own hand found a path from his neck, to his chest, down to where he was already hard for her.

“Paula,” he murmured when their kiss ended and his mouth trailed kisses from her cheek down to her neck. His tongue laved at her soft skin before his teeth bit down gently.

Something snapped inside Paula.

_Fuck._

She shouldn’t be doing this. She should _not_ be making out with Simon.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

She really made a colossal mistake coming here.

And to think she almost _came_ , without him ever touching her.

She jumped out of his lap and ran her fingers through her mussed hair, giving them something to preoccupy their mobility, lest she actually touched her swollen lips like she wanted to. She couldn’t look at Simon, her eyes planting themselves firmly to the ground where she was standing.

“Paula?” his voice was loud and clear despite the thunderous beating of her heart.

She breathed deeply and then lifted her chin, but she still couldn’t, wouldn’t look at him.

“I have to go,” she muttered before she was turning back. She almost ran to the door. Behind her she could hear Simon call her name, but she paid him no mind. Her legs were moving quicker than her brain, and better for her, because she didn’t know how she would resist him if she turned back and paused to look at him.

She was just glad he didn’t try to follow her.

**.:::.**

Simon struggled with the need to follow Paula as she ran away from him, but he knew that would only do more harm than good. He hadn’t wanted to kiss her...well, no, that was a lie. He had wanted to kiss her, of course, but he had not intended to. Not at that moment, not when things were so confusing, and when she was so confused - of everything, of him.

He knew that it wasn’t the right time, but he doubted they would know when that would ever be. Simon was not an idiot, and he was not born yesterday, he knew that this confinement wouldn’t end well, and it would not end with just confinement. It was politics, still, after all, and all they were doing was gather intel, figure out if he was what he said he was. He couldn’t help them from thinking about what they wanted, especially if they had already made their decisions.

He knew Paula was torn, he would be too if he was in her position. She was torn between her humanity, her growing attachment, and her loyalty to the State. Paula’s moral compass was greater than anyone he knew, but at the end of the day, survival pushed people to do the most unimaginable things sometimes. Even the kindest, best ones could be pushed, he knew that.

He knew better than to expect much out of life. 

And so he didn’t. 

Hope, after all, only bred eternal misery.

**:::**

And so he was miserable, for a little while anyway, until that misery bloomed into something other than hope when she appeared at his front door a few days later. She looked tired, maybe even as tired and as miserable as he did, but still beautiful.

“Paula?” he murmured her name in askance and looked at her searchingly.

Searching for what, he wasn’t entirely sure.

She looked at him blankly, but her eyes were troubled and forlorn, but she didn’t speak, didn’t move until he stepped aside to allow her entrance. Where before she would step into his house without question, she stood now looking uncomfortable and unsure.

He didn’t regret the kiss, never, but he did regret that it ruined the comfort that used to lie between them.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked softly, standing in front of her. They were in his living room, standing across each other, looking like they both wanted to be anywhere else but her.

He did.

She shook her head. “I won’t be staying long,” she replied, her voice soft and low.

“Oh,” was all he could come up with.

“Simon,” she murmured, and he looked at her, struggling to not cross the little space between them and take her into his arms. He fervently wanted to kiss all the discomfort away, let all the complications around them melt away. He knew that it was exactly what got into this in the first place.

He remained quiet, waiting her out and letting her speak her mind. She needed it. And though he wanted to say a lot of things himself, he knew that he needed to let her have this.

“I -,” she began but stopped, lifting her gaze from the floor to his face. It lasted for a brief second, but he saw the pain flash in her eyes. His heart felt like it was crumbling. She looked away again. “I wanted you to hear it from me so you wouldn’t be surprised. I arranged for a Psychologist to come and take over our sessions.”

His brows furrowed but still, he didn’t speak. He knew that her visits were professional, no matter how comfortable they had gotten with each other, and no matter what that kiss had implied.

“I know I told you that I was here to keep you company, and that remains true,” she said. He wouldn’t say it, and he wouldn’t allow himself to think that, but that was what he’d felt too. “And I’m not trying to force the psychologist on you, you can still dispose of their service if you don’t want it, but I wanted you to still have an ear if you wanted it.”

He nodded. “So you’re leaving?” he asked monotonously, clearing his face of emotions.

Her lips drew into a line and she finally looked at him.

“Yes,” she muttered.

He did not hear it, he did not see it, but he knew inside, his heart broke into a million tiny pieces. 

**.:::.**

She heard his breath hitch when she answered him. She wanted to look away but she couldn’t. She could see the pain, the questions, but she couldn’t take them away, she knew that. She could see his eyes turn glassy and she wanted so much to bridge the distance between them and embrace him, promise him she would stay, tell him this was not necessary. She couldn’t.

Funny, the distance between them was merely a few centimeters, maybe a few meters, but it felt like they’re two different planets now in two different axes.

She must _not_ cry. She could not let her emotions get the better of her.

“So everything...all the days that you’ve been here, becoming my friend, getting me to talk and letting me listen...those no longer matter?” he asked. His voice was flat and his features bore no expression. His eyes said it all.

She felt like she was suffocating, felt like a heavy weight settled on her chest. She wanted out of here. Now.

“I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t compromise myself and you more than I already have.”

That was the truth. This was not just about her. This was about him, too. She could not see objectively around him, their relationship was too deep, the emotions were too real. That could make an effect on the proceedings, should they ever come.

She could not do that to him.

“So you’re ready to give up on us?” he asked, and her breath was pulled out of her lungs.

She wanted to tell him that there was no ‘ _us_ ’. But that wouldn’t be strictly true, would it? Even she couldn’t lie to herself that much.

“Everything we had and everything that we’ve become to each other, you’re giving that all up?” he asked her, his eyes now earnest.

She felt the sides of her mouth pulling into a frown, and the tears pricking her eyes. She needed to be stronger than this.

“Simon,” she said, his name tumbling from her lips like a prayer. “I…”

She didn’t know what else she could say. Everything seemed to be pointless now. Every word seemed empty.

“If you do,” he began, “it would feel, to me, worse than anything they could ever do to me.”

She looked at him sharply then, wondering how that could be.

“I don’t care about them, Paula,” he told her, making her heart jump in her throat. She felt like fainting. “But I care about you.”

And that made all the difference in the world.


End file.
